The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has recommended that the Prevention of Organised Crime Bill be withdrawn and substantially revised, telling the Justice Minister the draft is “wholly incompatible” with the fundamental rights chapter of the Constitution and potentially more draconian than the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
The Commission set out its objections in a letter to Justice and National Integration Minister Harshana Nanayakkara, copied to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The Bill was published in the Gazette on 6 October and has since been presented to Parliament.
The Commission accepts that legislation against organised crime is needed — it notes such groups harm the rights of women and children and of victims and witnesses — but says this draft fails the constitutional and treaty tests it must meet.
Confessions to police
The central objection is evidential. Section 47 of the Bill would make confessions to officers of or above the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police admissible against a suspect. The Commission says this “virtually replicates” section 16 of the PTA, and repeats its long-standing finding that admitting police confessions tends to incentivise torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in custody.
How wide “serious crime” runs
Police could obtain a detention order from the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security for a suspect “connected with or concerned in a serious crime” — a term clause 3 defines broadly enough to reach offences that are not obviously serious at all. Daily FT reported the definition captures forfeiture or penalty offences under the Customs Ordinance, importing animals without a permit under the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance, and infringement of copyright, patents, industrial designs or marks under the Intellectual Property Act No. 36 of 2003.
The test for belonging to an organised criminal group is similarly wide: style of dress, hand signs, language or tattoos used by known members — or simply associating with them. The Commission says the Bill casts “a wide and unreasonable net” over citizens.
Removing the judge’s discretion
Contrary to article 13(2) of the Constitution, the Commission says, the Bill strips courts of the ordinary discretion to decide whether a suspect is discharged, bailed or remanded, compelling a Magistrate to remand a suspect or give effect to a detention order. It repeats the recommendation it made on the companion Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill: a judicial officer must at all times retain meaningful authority to discharge a suspect or grant bail.
Context
The intervention follows the Bar Association’s demand that both this Bill and the PSTA Bill be withdrawn, and criticism of the PSTA Bill by Amnesty International and the UN human rights office. The two are separate pieces of legislation moving in parallel.
Neither account reports a response from the Justice Ministry.