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Within the last few months, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka has made three decisions against police officers for similar violations of abusing their powers of arrest and torturing people purely to obtain bribes.
In one case, the petitioner stated that he was lawfully transporting furniture from Colombo to his permanent residence in Kalmunai when he stopped his truck for the night, as it was dangerous to proceed further in an elephant-infested area. He complained that a police officer appeared, searched the truck and asked for a bribe of 5,000 rupees (US$50), threatening the man he would be prosecuted for illegally transporting furniture if he did not comply with the request for money.
Despite the man's protestations of innocence and showing the officer a permit to transport the furniture (which, in fact, was not a legal requirement but which he had obtained through an abundance of caution), the police officer arrested him and took him and the truck to the police station. He was subsequently detained illegally and hit with a wire that injured him, causing severe pain.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of this petitioner and gave lengthy directions to the inspector general of police to take action to prevent similar occurrences, which the court stated were common abuses of power in the country.
A few months later the Supreme Court made another decision in a case involving a married couple who claimed that they too were illegally arrested, illegally detained and severely tortured due to their refusal to pay bribes demanded by the police. On this occasion, the bribe demanded was 2,000 rupees (US$20).
This family though was very poor as the husband, having suffered a head injury, had been paralyzed for several years, and consequently their means of livelihood was selling illicit liquor in their small village shop. The police officers in the area had a habit of obtaining bribes from them regularly by filing, from time to time, charges for selling illicit liquor against these two people alternatively, for which they had to pay small fines.
This particular incident took place on one occasion when they were unable to pay the bribe. The petitioners pleaded in court that one of the officers even demanded sexual favors from the wife and, in fact, tried to forcibly enter her bedroom at midnight through a window. Because the neighbors were awakened due to the woman's cries, they were able to catch the police officer. However, a large number of his colleagues soon arrived in a jeep and took the husband and wife to the police station, where they were assaulted and fabricated charges were filed against them.
In this case, the court again ruled in favor of the petitioners, declaring that their rights guaranteed by the Constitution had been violated and ordering that compensation be paid to them.
A third case was decided in favor of another man who complained to the Supreme Court that, while he was driving his car, he was stopped at a checkpoint and asked for his driving license. He handed over a duly authenticated duplicate license, as the original had been lost. The police officer threatened to prosecute this driver for possession of a forged document unless he gave the officer a bottle of perfume which was found in his car.
This petitioner declared his innocence, maintained the legal validity of his license and refused to comply with the demanded bribe. The officer retained the license and asked this person to leave the scene. As a measure of caution, however, he went to the nearest police station to make a complaint about this incident. Instead of recording the complaint, the police sent him back to the same checkpoint where he had had the incident.
Upon his arrival, the officers reacted furiously. They went back in his car to the police station and handed him over to the Fraud Bureau, which detained him overnight and charged him for possessing a forged document. The magistrate remanded him pending further inquiries and released him only when a report was filed from the registrar of the Motor Traffic Branch stating that the license was genuine.
On all of these three occasions, the Supreme Court has given very lengthy directives to the inspector general of police and the secretary of the Ministry of Defense on the measures to be taken to prevent the abuse of power by police and military authorities, particularly with regard to searches and arrests at checkpoints that have sprouted up all over Colombo and elsewhere. While the purpose of these checkpoints is to prevent security breaches, they are being used, in fact, as places to collect bribes.
The latest case that came before the Supreme Court this week only proves that the directives given by the court have in no way altered the practice of using the national security law for the personal benefit of the officers. While these four incidents are related to petty bribes, it has been acknowledged that the kidnappings that have been taking place in Colombo and elsewhere have also been used to extract money. If the situation around Colombo is like those just described, it is unimaginable the extent to which the abuse of authority is taking place in the north and east, where the country's conflict is much more acute.
While the authorities ignore the directives of the Supreme Court, despite the court repeatedly reissuing these directives, the government takes an attitude of encouraging this illegal behavior, not only among law enforcement officers, but also among members of the government itself.
The notorious incident regarding the conflict of the government minister, Mervyn Silva, with the country's state television channel, Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corp., and the subsequent attacks on journalists did not provoke any responsible action on the part of the government. In fact, the government's reaction has created a public perception that it is part of the present-day ruling strategy to allow such a state of lawlessness to exist.
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(Basil Fernando is director of the Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong. He is a Sri Lankan lawyer who has also been a senior U.N. human rights officer in Cambodia. He has published several books and written extensively on human rights issues in Asia.)
