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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ramarajan" data-source="post: 1603378" data-attributes="member: 86701">Arrest and DetentionUnder the law, authorities must inform an arrested person of the reason for arrest and bring that person before a magistrate within 24 hours, but in practice,detained persons generally appeared within a few days before a magistrate. A magistrate may authorize bail or continued pretrial detention for up to three months or longer. Police do not need an arrest warrant for certain offenses, such as murder, theft, robbery, and rape. In the case of murder, the magistrate must remand the suspect, and only the High Court may grant bail. In all cases suspects have the right to legal representation. Counsel is provided for indigent defendants in criminal cases before the High Court and the Courts of Appeal, but not in other cases.Under the emergency regulations, in addition to police forces, the armed forces also had the legal authority to arrest persons, but they were required to turn suspects over to the police within 24 hours. Police can detain a person for a period of not more than one year under detention orders issued by a deputy inspector general of police or by the secretary of defense. Numerous NGOs and individuals complained that the armed forces and their paramilitary allies arrested suspected LTTE sympathizers, especially in Jaffna, and did not turn them over to the police, blurring the line between arrests and abductions. Credible reports alleged that security forces and paramilitaries often tortured and killed those arrested rather than follow the legal safeguards. Under the emergency regulations, individuals arrested may be detained for up to a year without trial.Between November 30 and December 3, in response to two LTTE bomb attacks in and around Colombo, the police conducted random cordon and search operations and arrested nearly 2,500 Tamils in the capital and an estimated 3,500 countrywide. The detained, mostly male Tamil civilians were reportedly arrested based solely on their Tamil surnames. The vast majority of the detainees were soon released. The Supreme Court ordered the government to release the detainees on bail if they were no longer required for questioning. By year's end only 12 of the 372 arrestees held in the Boossa detention camp were still in custody. In the majority of cases in which security force personnel possibly committed human rights abuses, the government did not identify those responsible or bring them to justice. Human rights organizations noted that some judges were hesitant to convict on cases of torture because of a seven‑year mandatory sentence. At year's end there was no functioning witness protection program. According to human rights organizations, obtaining medical evidence of torture was difficult, since there were fewer than 25 forensic specialists, and medical practitioners untrained in the field of torture assessment examined most torture victims. In some cases police intimidated doctors responsible for collecting the evidence.The SLHRC investigated the legality of detention in cases referred to it by the Supreme Court and by private citizens.e. Denial of Fair Public TrialThe law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected this provision in practice.The president appoints judges to the Supreme Court, the High Court, and the Courts of Appeal. A judicial service commission, composed of the Chief Justice and two Supreme Court judges, appoints and transfers lower court judges. Judges may be removed for misbehavior or incapacity but only after an investigation followed by joint action of the president and the parliament.</blockquote>

Verification: Hathara warak wissa keeyada? (Hathara wadi karanna 20)

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