(Hong Kong, January 19, 2012) On January 17 the Asian Human Rights Commission sent an open letter to the Attorney General of Sri Lanka on the issue of the AG’s Department taking over the defense of a Superintendent of Police in a private plaint. In that letter the AHRC said:
By this decision you will be protecting an accused charged before a court of law. This is very opposite to what an Attorney General who exercises the public prosecutors role is suppose to do. This is dangerous to the nation as it undermines the rule of law. Your role is to protect the rule of law and not to undermine it. Thus this is gross abuse of your powers. The AG’s power to exercise nolle proseque (Not to prosecute), should not be so trivially used in violation of the principle of equality before law.
The AHRC has now prepared a Sinhala translation of that Open Letter the link to which is attached below.
