Legal Performance

Intervened to expedite the serving of indictment on a suspect was in remand for 10 years due to the negligence of law, enforcement authorities. The suspect was produced in Courts on 18/02/2009 for the first time after 10 years.

• In a case filed by the Divisional Secretary, Thimbirigasyaya, on a rent and ejectment case against 6 persons replies were filed on behalf of the respondents.
• Obtained bail for a murder suspect who was in remand custody for over 4 years.
• Intervened in the arrest of a suspect to expedite his case.

Drop-in Clients

During the month of January 116 drop-in clients were entertained including regional offices Jaffna and Anuradapura.

In February and March the drop-in clients were 120 and 135 respectively.

These statistics include new and old clients.

Letters

Letters are exchanged between clients and IHR on matters where clients are unable to visit IHR personally.

Court Appearances

The details of the court appearance are as follows :
January – there were 139 court appearances of which 58 were PTA/ER matters and48
were employment related matters.

February – 118 court appearances of which 66 were PTA/ER matters and 18 were related to rent and ejectment matters.

March – 180 court appearances of which 95 were PTA/ER matters and considerable number of rent and ejectment matters.

Prison Clinics

Is conducted throughout the island for both male and female prison inmates.. At present the prisons are over crowded by 400% due to delays in the due process. Our interventions helps long term remandees to obtain bai, expedited indictments, hearings etc., Remandees with minor offences are being detained and incurring high costs for their detention.

Our intervention help reduce the over crowding and the release of minor offenders and long term remandees . We do furnish bail money for minor offenders.

Regional Offices

IHR services are extended to the public by the opening of regional offices at Anuradhapura, Kotapola and Ampara. This has made an impact in public awareness of the legal aid work of the IHR.

Transport service to Boosa

Transport service is arranged to reduce the burden of family members of detainees. Transport services to Boossa detention centre which is of great benefit to those who are unable or unwilling to use public transport. A bus is arranged from IHR to BOOSSA.

• In January on two occasions and in February on four occasions this services were provided.

Hotline

Service is provided to facilitate legal services for the Arrest and Detention cases and Boosa transport service. Hotline number was advertised in the News papers.

• Services are extended even to distant areas through the island wide network of lawyers.

Mobile Clinics

Mobile clinics are scheduled to conduct throughout the island. We provide legal aid by visiting villages. This helps villagers to address their problems at their doorstop.

• Mobile legal clinics were organized by the regional offices at Deniyaya, Anuradhapura and Ampara on 07th, 15th and 21st of March respectively.
• At Deniyaya visited 2 plantation estates and observed that most employees did not have important documents such as the NIC, birth certificate, death certificate etc.

At Anuradhapura we made a presentation on the services of IHR at the Regional Health Department on their invitation

• Human Rights Education and Training – Jun 2009
• Empowerment of Detainees and Conflict Affected Persons – Jun 2009
• Publications – Jun 2009

Mobile Clinics
Another approach to the “Access to Justice” is conducting free mobile legal clinics. Generally people go in search of a lawyer for their legal problems.
IHR’s is extending it’s free legal services to the doorstep of the villagers. IHR has experience in conducting these clinics for last four years.
The Lawyers visit villages on a pre-determined day and speak to the villagers, individually. Through consultation solutions are given on the spot. But there are instances, where the matter needs to be referred to another organization, or a case needs to be filed at the courts. At this instance IHR bring or relevant information/documents to Colombo and follow on same.
The lawyers, visit the villages and speak to the villagers, to find out the problems faced by them, with the intention of providing solutions.
IHR co-ordinates with the Divisional Secretary or Grama Sevakas of each division, to organize such mobile clinics.

The Juvenile justice Project

The Restoration & Protection Unit has been working very closely with the Department of Probation and Child Care for a considerable period of time providing free legal assistance and reunifying  the juveniles in the remand homes in the Western province. The table given below shows the statistics for the months of March, April and May 2009.

Case Study

Magistrates Courts, Trincomalee had sent 14 year old Nishanthan to the Boys remand home, Kottawa  for 2 years for committing the offence of stealing a bicycle and this had not been informed to his parents.

IHR, after much effort managed to contact his mother who came forward as his guardian. He was released after 2 years on 28th May 2009 and was referred to Sarvodaya Vocational Training Centre to be trained in motor mechanism for a period of 6 months.

Increased number of visits to remand homes

IHR increased the number of visits per month to remand homes with the objective of reunifying more children

Psychosocial support center

A Psychosocial Support Centre (PSC)  was set up at IHR to provide psychosocial services through referral services. Through this services such as legal aid, temporary shelter facilities, counseling etc. are provided.

In the months of March, April and May 2009, services have been extended as follows.

March-12 clients

April -10 clients

May -12 clients

Also several advices have been given through telephone calls.

There are clients accessing the services throuph telephone calls and visits

Orientation Programme for network lawyers

An orientation programme for the network lawyers was held on the 21st March 2009 at  the Save the Children in Sri Lanka (SCiSL) head office.

Orientation Programme for network lawyers - Mr. Sajeewa Samaranayake and external consultant addressing the lawyers

Objectives of the Programme:

▪ Provide participants with background knowledge on Juvenile justice project carried out by IHR as a partner of SCiSL.

▪ Discuss the challenges faced by the network lawyers, in the process of expediting reunification of children from remand homes.

▪  Enable the network lawyers to benefit by a technical session on the Children and Young Persons Ordinance N. 48 of 1939.

The meeting commenced with an introduction to SCiSL and IHR ‘s work on Legal aid ,reunification and the follow up process. This was followed by a presentation on a summary of the work done by Social Legal Protection (SLP) project, progress and plans for the future. The importance of the role of a network lawyers in the process of reunification was emphasized in the  presentation.The main protection aspects of the CYPO and some thought-provoking data /excerpts of reports were also presented to the participants by the resource person,  Mr. Sajeeva Samaranayake – Attorney-at-Law.

Details of cases handled