TNA also warns of taking Sri Lanka to International Criminal Court

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliament M A Sumanthiran warned that unless Sri Lanka agrees to include international judges in a accountability mechanism, the Tamil people will “be left with no choice but to take steps to move towards an entirely international judicial mechanism”.

Speaking to Sri Lanka’s parliament earlier today, Sumanthiran said "the state of Sri Lanka cannot be an independent arbiter".

“If the government does not adhere to the commitment of including foreign judges in a judicial mechanism, the Tamil people will be left with no choice but to take steps to move towards an entirely international judicial mechanism,” warned Sumanthiran.

“Our people have been asking for it, that Sri Lanka be referred to the International Criminal Court,” he added.

He also argued against the foreign minister’s assertion in Geneva that the inclusion of foreign judges in any type of accountability mechanism was not allowed in Sri Lanka’s constitution. Sumanthiran told parliament that in 2015, then Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapaksa agreed it was possible for foreign judges to partake in such a mechanism as his government agreed to a resolution at the UN, mandating a hybrid court.

The call for referring Sri Lanka to the ICC has been raised by protestors across the North-East, including by families of the disappeared, and in the Tamil diaspora, with over 18,000 people signing a British parliamentary petition earlier this year.

Despite Sri Lanka agreeing to a resolution that mandated foreign judges in 2015, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister told the UN Human Rights Council this week that his government would not agreed to such a move. The UN passed a resolution yesterday that granted Sri Lanka two more years to put in place such a mechanism.