sri lanka's commissions of inquiry - Law & Society Trust

Legislative provision be made for exempting whatever amount
paid as compensation from being made the subject matter of a
civil claim and seizure. I.1(iii)
Southern, Final
(169)
1997
category of ‘death’ after the death certificate has been obtained. REPPIA did at one time operate a separate scheme to pay compensation to
families of missing persons, but this has, reportedly, been discontinued. The current MAP scheme provides a maximum of Rs. 50,000 and
Rs. 150,000 [to public servants by virtue of Public Administration Circular No.21/85] to be paid to the general public and public servants,
respectively. At one time, there was also a concurrent scheme administered by the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Authority of the North
(RRAN), whereby compensation paid to dependents of persons killed due to terrorist activities was a maximum of Rs. 100,000 [Cabinet Paper
01/1789/026/006.]
‘The Ministry of Rehabilitation used to pay Rs. 50 000 for a family in the event of the violent death of a breadwinner. This amount was raised
to Rs. 100,000 by a cabinet decision of 24th October 2001, based on a paper presented by Douglas Devananda then Minister of Development,
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction for the North, and Tamil Affairs, North and East (see Appendix for details). Direction was then given that
all GAs in the North-East should comply with it. But a circular was apparently not issued and soon afterwards Devananda ceased to be a
Minister. Inquiries made by us revealed that the Jaffna Kacheri has been paying Rs. 100,000 since at least January 2006, after Devananda
was back as a minister, but the Tamils in the East were entitled to only Rs. 50,000 and were experiencing almost infinite delays even for
this reduced sum. With inflation running at over 10 percent, and now at 20 percent, with the Government printing money to pay for the war,
the Rs. 100,000 for death envisaged in 2001 would be worth half that amount today, but how the system has operated tells us a good deal.
Though passed by the cabinet, receiving compensation today is largely guided by political patronage. UTHR(J) Information Bulletin No.
45, Date of Release: 27th March 2007, http://www.uthr.org/bulletins/Bul45.htm ]. Applications from the North have now been subsumed
under REPPIA however. In May 1999 a special “Unit for the Clarification of Cases of Alleged Forced or Involuntary Disappearances”, which
has been set up by the Cabinet of Ministers as part of the Rehabilitation of Persons, Properties and Industries Authority (REPPIA), started
to operate a special computer programme relating to all cases of disappearances submitted by the Working Group to the Government of Sri
Lanka. REPPIA was established by an Act of Parliament No.29 of 1987, under the Ministry of Re-settlement and Disaster Relief Services. Its
mandate is the rehabilitation and resettlement of persons and properties affected by the war. Writing in 2007 ( with regard to the year 2006)
Shyamala Gomez states that under the Unified Assistance Scheme of REPPIA, it provides compensation to internally displaced persons of
Rs.100,000 to non-government servants and Rs.150,000 to government servants to rebuild their homes. She also states that the North East
Housing Reconstruction Scheme(NEHRP) is to reconstruct 46,000 houses in the North and East over a four year period. Housing assistance
consists of Rs.110,000 for each family with a monthly income below Rs.2500. See Gomez, Shyamala, Post Tsunami Housing Rights, Sri
Lanka State of Human Rights 2007, Law & Society Trust, at p.393.
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