Throughout the past three decades, successive governments have stressed the importance of constitutional reform. This has been either as a means of addressing minority grievances which in turn would form part of a solution to the ethnic conflict or as a means of restructuring various contentious aspects within the 1978 Constitution (i.e. the executive presidential system […]
24th May 2019, Colombo, Sri Lanka – The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) expresses its deep shock and concern over the Presidential pardon of Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, who was released from prison on 23rd May 2019. The pardon raises a number of pressing questions which the President and the government are obliged to answer. […]
The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is alarmed by the increased spate of communal violence against the Muslim community since the Easter Sunday attacks of 21 April 2019. Recent and ongoing incidents in Negombo, Chilaw, Kurunagala, Kuliyapitiya, Hettipola, Dummalasuriya, Rasnayakapura, Kobeigane, Bingiriya among others indicate that Muslim homes, businesses and places of worship are being […]
The Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka were the worst incidence of terrorism since the end of the war a decade ago. Four days after the main events, the aftershocks of the attack have still not subsided and the country has not returned to normalcy. In order to deal with the situation, the President proclaimed […]
21st April 2019, Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) vehemently condemns today’s attacks on three churches, three hotels and other locations across Sri Lanka that resulted in over 200 deaths and left over 450 injured. This shocking and senseless attack is the largest witnessed in post-war Sri Lanka. CPA extends its deep […]
The proposed Counter-Terrorism Act (CTA) was approved by Cabinet on 11 September 2018 and tabled in Parliament on 9 October 2018. This short document prepared by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) attempts to address frequently asked questions on the CTA and compliments previous documents on the same issue. Initial statement made by CPA on […]
This report examines seven emblematic cases to evaluate the levels of accountability in the prosecution of cases of human rights violations within Sri Lanka’s criminal justice system. The report is structured in three parts. First, it establishes several recurrent trends causing system failures and exacerbating the culture of impunity in Sri Lanka that the selected […]