COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
Country of Origin Information Service
UK Border Agency
12 August 2011
Dear colleague,
Re: Sri Lanka: Court Summons
The British High Commission in Colombo routinely monitors legal processes and procedures in
Sri Lanka.
In July 2010 Mr Xxxxx Xxxxx, a lawyer, Notary Public and Commissioner for Oaths based in
Colombo explained the process regarding a summons. The usual process began with a suspect
being arrested by the police. After completing their enquiries the police will produce the suspect
before a Magistrate. The Magistrate will decide whether the case should proceed, and if it does,
they will decide on whether the suspect should be released on bail or remain in custody. If
granted bail, the Magistrates Court will subsequently issue a summons, notifying the accused
person of the date of their next Court appearance. The Summons/Notice is a standard format
and is used across the whole of Sri Lanka.
Mr Xxxxx told me that summonses are always served in person by a Fiscal Officer. This person
is an employee of the Court and will visit the defendant‘s last known address or place of work. If
they cannot locate the defendant they will either serve the summons on the head of household,
or if there is no response, they will paste the summons on the front door of the defendant‘s last
known address.
Mr Xxxxx explained that more than one summons could be served on a person for the same
case. For example, the case may not have proceeded on the first court date, or the defendant
may not have appeared, so a second summons could be issued for a second court date. If a
defendant failed to appear for a Court date, the police could approach the Magistrate and ask
for them to issue an arrest warrant. If issued, the arrest warrant would be handed to the police.
Mr Xxxx confirmed that this was similar to UK courts issuing a bench warrant.
In order to clarify the procedures further surrounding the issue of court summons, this week we
approached three separate sources, asked three separate questions and recorded three
separate answers as below:
What is the procedure for issuing a Court summons?
A Court official in Vavuniya told us that the police officer in charge of the case (OIC) initiates the
summons which is signed by the registrar and then issued by the police to the subject.
The Sri Lanka Police – Information Services Room stated that the Judge authorises the
summons that needs to be served and he/she alone can approve this. The summons is then
given to the police to be disseminated.
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
285