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Police to get 48 hours
The Ministry of Justice is to present a bill amending the Criminal Procedure court shortly to allow the Police to detain a suspect for 48 hours instead of the 24 specified by the Criminal Procedure Code prior to producing suspects before a magistrate.
amendment also has specified a list of crimes for which it will operate including, murder robbery and rape. The main intention of the introduction of the amendment is the need to immediately arrest the alarming levels of crime rate prevalent in the country, highly placed sources in the Ministry of Justice said.
The extension of the detention period for suspects was first enacted in 2007 by way of a special provisions act. The special provisions act was limited for a period of two years at the time it was introduced. However the Minister of Justice sought to extend the act in September 2011. It was pointed out at the time by Presidents Counsel MP Wijedasa Rajapaksha that the special provisions act expired in May 2009 and that there was no law to extend.
Subsequently the Ministry of Justice took steps to re introduce the act as an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code and had sought the view of the BASL .
Wijeydasa Rajapaksha MP and President of the Bar association of Sri Lanka speaking on the amendment said that the BASL supported the move due to the increase in crime rates. “The increase in crime rates is unprecedented and this might help curb the alarming levels of the crime rates prevalent in the country” he said.
When the Daily Mirror pointed out that this might lead to torture of suspects Rajapaksha said that the amendment will have little impact in the torture prevalent in Police stations. “Even if the amendments were not brought and the law stayed as it is the torture would not stop. To this end the BASL has done everything possible to ensure that lawyers and suspects rights are safeguarded by the Police so that they could have access to suspects within Police custody.The amendment has also allowed relatives and family members to visit suspects held in custody ” he said.
Rajapaksha went onto state that the IGP had provided the BASL a guarantee to the effect that the lawyers rights within Police stations would be safeguarded and they would be given direct access to the suspects held in custody. “This settlement was agreed in the Supreme Court and the IGP agreed to issue directives to the Police which guarantee free access of lawyers and compels the Police to treat lawyers in a dignified manner” . The directive is to be gazzetted shortly Rajapaksha said. (Hafeel Farisz)
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