Conviction of the prison system
The 2015 annual performance report of the Department of Prisons presented recently to Parliament contains some worrying statistics. It reveals that a vast majority of inmates in jail — by a yawning margin—were remand suspects not yet convicted in a court of law.
Of 113,734 prisoners, a shocking 89,586 were suspects in remand. Only 24,184 were convicted prisoners. This meant that three in four inmates have not been found guilty of any offence. As our news report (see story on Page 12) reveals, one of the reasons that many are wasting away in lockup continues to be their inability to meet often needlessly harsh bail conditions. Sri Lanka’s prisons are today 53 percent overcrowded.
This is a travesty of justice, one that has long been highlighted by legal experts as being unacceptable in a modern democracy. Our prisons are filling up simply because remand suspects are incarcerated for long periods of time — without ever being convicted — or because others who have committed minor offences are kept inside for several weeks without bail. This is worsened by long lamented laws delays for which successive governments have provided no solution.
The very rationale behind placing a defendant in custody pending the adjournment of a trial is being violated. Persons who are neither violent nor posing a threat to society, have no history of previous offences and show no signs of absconding arrest are today inflating prison numbers and guzzling up precious resources.
Even worse is a repeated judicial failure to specify when sentences should be served concurrently by convicted prisoners. This results in some inmates languishing in jail without legal aid for months, if not years. Lives are going to ruin due to identified, remediable flaws in the prevailing system.
Experts are pushing — and have done so for many years — for more accurate interpretations of the Bail Act that do not violate the fundamental rights of a person enshrined in the Constitution. Among other things, there is a need for a new Bail Act to go through without further delay.
Yet, there has been little or no movement in the direction of meaningful change. After the 2012 Welikada prison riots, in which 27 people died, a comprehensive Prisons Bill aimed at improving prison conditions was drafted by a multi-sector ten-member committee headed by Justice Hector Yapa. They studied international and local legislation, rules and prisons practices to create an all-inclusive Act. Special attention was given to the aspects of rehabilitation and reformation of prisoners as well as alternatives to incarceration as a solution to overcrowding.
But it came to nought. After the draft was finalised, it disappeared and is no longer spoken of. It would not take much to resurrect this Bill and to proceed from where previous policymakers left off. No. 08, Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 02. P.O. Box 1136, Colombo editor@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2331276 news@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479332, 2328889, 2331276 features@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479312, 2328889,2331276 pictures@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479323, 2479315 sports@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479311 bt@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479319 funtimes@sundaytimes.wnl.lk - 2479337, 2331276 2479540, 2479579, 2479725 2479629, 2477628, 2459725