Lawyers allege that police are increasingly threatening and harassing them. If a lawyer who intervenes on behalf of a client and earns the wrath of the police, he could be brought to court on a false complaint and remanded until he is released on bail by the High Court.

At present, a magistrate will examine the material before him and decide whether the evidence was sufficient to warrant a remand. But if the amendment becomes law, no such protection is offered to any one, not even to a lawyer.

When Colombo Magistrate's Court lawyers protested that this would transform this paradise island into a penal colony no one cared. The Bar soon awoke from its slumber and appointed a committee headed by President's Counsel Ananda Wijesekera to review the amendment. U. R. de Silva, present Treasurer of the Bar Association, was a member of this committee. The committee produced a lengthy report but failed to highlight its possible abuse. It did not warn of the danger inherent in a piece of legislation built on the imaginations and the fantasies of the Police and other officials. It did not explain that even in the past such ad-hoc legislation had failed to curb the crime rate. Instead of totally opposing the bill, the committee recommended certain changes to it.

The main recommendation was that the following proviso be included to the Section 5(a) of the proposed Act: "provided further that the High Court may release such person on bail before or after the expiration of three months whether proceedings are instituted or not. If an accused should be kept in remand and it is felt that the High Court may not grant bail to a particular suspect the Attorney-General will make an application to Court under Section 17 of the Bail Act."

The minister who thought he would not have a straw to cling to must have been pleased with the proposal of the Wijesekera Committee. Where is the opposition to the Bill? Only some disgruntled members from the Colombo Magistrates Court were opposed to it, he must have thought.

The bill in its original form was so ludicrous. It gives rise to a situation where a person suspected of murder could have gone to the High Court for bail but a person suspected of committing grievous hurt could be remanded until the conclusion of the trial. No person of rational mind would present such a bill. Yet the Bar Association committee proposed changes to rectify the ludicrous anomaly in the bill and suggested an alternative - a deviant method of obtaining bail from the High Court.

Can any rational person justify a situation where a suspect produced on charges of trespass or causing grievous hurt or cheating by impersonation or criminal breach of trust is compelled to go to the High Court for bail. Is there any justification for the removal of the discretion vested in the magistrate? Are we saying that the magistrates use their discretion unwisely or that they are incompetent to grant bail or prone to grant bail on a platter at the request of a lawyer?

Or do we accept that police officers are more honest and competent than judges and that the police officer should be the sole arbiter in deciding what offence the suspect has committed?

The amendment simply will lead to a situation where some corrupt police officers will determine and dictate the fate of a suspect with the shifting of the jurisdiction to the High Court.

High Courts will be inundated with bail applications and due to the extra load of work there would be extraordinary delay in deciding the release of a suspect on bail which may further prolong the wait beyond the stipulated three months.

This to my mind is the most draconian piece of legislation that ever came to be presented in Parliament - more draconian than the Prevention of Terrorism Act which is only a temporary provision applying to special circumstances.

The amendment to the Bail Act would be a permanent amendment and would result in the prisons being overcrowded. Professor G. L. Peiris, who fathered the amendment when he was the Minister of Justice, was willing to educate the people of the oppressive nature of the Act.

Before all this could be done, the Government fell on the very day the Bail Act Amendment Bill was presented in Parliament. Professor Peiris, then an ordinary member of Parliament, was prepared to vehemently oppose the bill but some unruly elements surrounded his house and prevented him from going to Parliament.

UNP MPs, including John Amaratunga, Tilak Marapana and Tyronne Fernando, saw the obvious motivation of the PA Government. If this Bill ever became law they would have used this to terrorise the opposition. Now the tables have turned.

Batty Weerakoon is no longer in Parliament. He withdrew his case filed by him for not appointing him as a National list MP. John Amaratunga, Tilak Marapana and Tyronne Fernando hold important portfolios in the Government.

Today we have a situation where the present Minister of Justice and Law Reform, W.J.M. Lokubandara, is presenting the same Act which was opposed by the very members of Parliament who were then in the opposition. Isn't it ludicrous?

The very Act which was poison when in the Opposition has become elixir when in the Government. The real intentions of presenting this Bill may be to keep the Opposition in remand when it becomes necessary. But the poor and the oppressed people of this country will curse any government which enacts this kind of legislation. We will soon be controlled by a mafia which is worse than the underworld. No one will be safe!

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