Govt. to set up Office of Missing Persons

The mandate of the three-member Commission appointed by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in August 2003 to investigate and report on missing persons will end on July 15 and will be replaced by the proposed Office of Missing Persons (OMP), Eastern Province Governor Austin Fernando said.

He said the OMP would be a permanent body and the reverent Act would be presented in Parliament next month.

“The Government has decided to set up the OMP, which will take over the functions of the Commission on Missing Persons and continue inquiries on tracing them,” Mr. Fernando said.

The Cabinet has approved the proposal made by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for the setting up of an office to deal with all issues relating to missing persons -- the submitting of recommendations, protecting the rights of missing persons and their relatives and identify the channels for the obtaining of relief. The OMP will also maintain a data base collected public and state sector institutions on missing persons.

In a resolution approved in 2013, the UNHRC urged the government to establish a credible mechanism to address alleged violations of the International Humanitarian Law during the final phase of the armed conflict.

“There are complaints of people gone missing with their whereabouts unknown during the armed conflict or during political or civil unrest or civil disturbances which are termed as enforced disappearances in the International Convention on Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said in his Cabinet memo."Providing information on missing persons is essential. Once the truth is ascertained, it will pave the way for closure, reparations and support."

The OMP is also tasked to collate data relating to missing persons obtained by processes presently being carried out or which were previously carried out, by other institutions, organizations, government departments and commissions of inquiry.

The Members and Chairman of the OMP should be appointed by the President, on the recommendation of the Constitutional Council. It is further proposed that its mandate should extend to missing persons notwithstanding the time period in which such person went missing.

The OMP should have sufficient administrative and investigative powers, including those granted to Commissions of Inquiry, with the power to compel the cooperation of persons and state institutions and officers in the course of its investigations.

While the OMP will not engage in prosecutions, it should be vested with investigative powers to be exercised for the purpose of clarifying the fate of the missing person and the circumstances related to the disappearance. It should also create public awareness with regard to the incidence of missing persons, and make appropriate recommendations, including recommendations with regard to necessary institutional, structural, administrative and legal reform. The findings of the OMP will not give rise to civil or criminal liability. (Sandun A Jayasekera)