South African delegation calls on Justice Minister Hakeem
Saturday, 8 February 2014 00:01
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Geoff Doidge, South African High Commissioner met Justice Minister and SLMC Leader Rauff Hakeem at his Ministry on Thursday (6) and discuss matters pertaining to reconciliation process. Transformation Initiative Organisation of South Africa Director Ivor H. Jenkins was also present.
During the meeting Minister Hakeem explained in detail the new initiatives taken by Ministry of Justice with regard to administration of justice and legal reforms especially with regard to victim and witness protection legislation.
Minister Hakeem emphasised that international community should not push too hard on Sri Lanka on the issues of accountability and said that the proposed resolution for international probe against the country would be counterproductive and polarise communities and damage the process of reconciliation that is in progress.
Sri Lanka has taken every possible measure to address the issues raised by the international community and working hard to ensure human rights to all citizens.
High Commissioner Doidge and Jenkins were of the view that Sri Lanka should find indigenous solutions to problems. They stressed that it is advisable to commence an internal mechanism to probe allegations of human rights violations. They further stressed the importance of commencing a process of political dialogue with all stakeholders. If such measures are taken the international community would soften its hard position towards Sri Lanka.
Both parties discussed the importance of having a process similar to Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa. Whilst admitting the process of TRC was not totally perfect and flawless they suggested Sri Lanka should develop its own system truth and reconciliation mechanism based on lessons learned from other countries.
They also said that in South Africa the reconciliation process was very difficult as white dominated Police and armed forces were very much against truth and reconciliation the blacks were sceptical about the outcome. However the system worked fairly well in South Africa.
Minister Hakeem said President Mahinda Rajapaksa is very keen to have an internal truth and reconciliation process and he has discussed about such a mechanism with him.
The Minister also discussed with them the possibility of collaborative study of the applicability of Roman Dutch Law, which is common for both countries by two universities in South Africa and Sri Lanka.
Minister Hakeem requested the Ambassador to convince South African investors to Sri Lanka since the country is developing fast after the end of war.
