Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa yesterday held the Government responsible for the recent violence at the Negombo Prison, arguing that a State unable to ensure the safety of those in its custody cannot credibly claim to guarantee national security.
Speaking during the adjournment debate in Parliament on the Negombo Prison incident, Premadasa said the Government bore full responsibility for the lives of prisoners and remand detainees because they remained in State custody.
He recalled that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, while serving as an Opposition MP, had previously stated that the Government was responsible for protecting the lives of all persons held in custody.
Premadasa said more than 26 people had been killed and over 100 injured in the recent violence at Negombo Prison, adding that the Government should accept full responsibility for the incident.
He noted that prison reform, reducing overcrowding and rehabilitation fell within the responsibilities of the Ministry of Justice and National Integration, and said the Constitution’s chapter on fundamental rights prohibited torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Premadasa argued that successive governments had failed to address longstanding problems in the prison system, despite repeated promises of reform. He said the current Government had pledged in its policy statement to transform the prison sector as part of its promise to replace the failures of the past 76 years, but the Negombo incident suggested that the promised ‘system change’ had not materialised.
Referring to media reports, he said Sri Lanka’s prisons were designed to accommodate around 10,000 inmates but were currently holding nearly 40,000. He questioned whether the Justice Minister had adequately assessed overcrowding and the risks arising from it.
Premadasa also said the Government had failed to learn lessons from previous incidents at the Mahara and Welikada prisons. He criticised the continuing failure to appoint a permanent Commissioner General of Prisons and questioned whether even a preliminary report on the Negombo incident had been obtained.
He further questioned whether the Justice Minister accepted the President’s earlier position that the Government was responsible for protecting the lives of prisoners in State custody, arguing that the deaths and injuries demonstrated both the Government’s failure and its inability to deliver the institutional reforms it had promised.
Premadasa also accused the Justice Minister of focusing on proposals relating to the retirement age of Supreme Court judges instead of addressing problems within the prison system. He said that if the Government could not ensure security inside a prison, it was legitimate to question how it intended to guarantee the security of the country’s 22 million people.