President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has appointed a special Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) to implement recommendations and decisions made by the PCoI appointed to inquire into incidents of political victimisation.
President Rajapaksa appointed the special PCoI through an Extraordinary Gazette dated January 29, 2021.
As per the Extraordinary Gazette issued the members of the newly appointed PCoI are Supreme Court Judge Justice Dhammika Priyantha Samarakoon Jayawardena, Supreme Court Judge Justice Khema Kumudini Wickremasinghe and Court of Appeal Judge Justice R.Gurusinghe. The commission is headed by Justice Jayawardena.
According to the Gazette notification the Commissioners are authorised and empowered to conduct necessary investigations and inquiries and provide the final report or an interim report with their signatures included with the relevant investigations, inquiries, recommendations and conclusions together with the foisted punishments within three months from the appointed date to the President.
The recommendations of the final reports states, that by establishment of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, Financial Investigations Divisions of the Sri Lanka Police of the Special Investigations Unit of the Sri Lanka Police was established contrary to the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure. These were established by a set of people of a political organization under the name of Anti-Corruption Committee and a National Executive Council, which was established against the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and contrary to the provisions of the same, with the intention of directly or indirectly retaliate the Complainants who are mentioned in the said investigation report.
It will be empowered to check whether if the respondents mentioned in the item No. 08 of the report had violated provisions of the Constitution of Sri Lanka, while destructing the oath which had been given in accordance with the provision of the said Constitution, abuse or misuse of power, interference, fraud, corruption, criminal misuse, criminal breach of trust or nepotism, political retaliation against someone when making any appointment or transfer, granting a promotion, terminating the service, of someone due to any type of disorder or violating of any written law will be further investigated.
The Commissioners have been tasked to further investigate and report whether above malpractices have been done and what extent are the above respondents so responsible, and to recommend whether a person should be subjected to a community disability according to the provisions of Article 81 of the Constitution and Section 9 of the Special Presidential Commission of Inquiry Act No. 7 of 1978.
