A judge in Mannar has rejected families of the disappeared in the Mannar’s mass grave case representation in court on the basis that they “do not have a legal standing to do so,” according to JDS Lanka.

Earlier this week on Tuesday, Mannar Magistrate Manikkawasakar Ganesharajah said in his ruling;

“There is no locus standi either in criminal procedure or settled case law for attorneys appearing on behalf of fictitious persons called victims, who are staging politically-coloured theatrics on the platform of justice.”

Instead, Ganesharajah has designated the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) to stand in the dispute instead, with the Attorney General’s Department in charge of conducting the inquiry.

The government-sanctioned OMP - which was established in February 2018 to find the truth about disappeared personnel - has yet to find a single victim, with the OMP head acknowledging that “their failures had angered relatives”.

Representatives for the families have condemned the ruling, with the Association of the Relatives of the Disappeared – made up of representatives from all eight districts of the North-East – also intervening in the legal process.  

“Following the C14 dating of the skeletal remains – after the report was received – the Mannar magistrate said (lawyers) could not appear for fictitious persons,” said legal counsel to the families of the disappeared, Lawyer V. S. Niranjan. “Exhumations will take place on the 16th and 17th without the lawyers looking after the interests of the families of the disappeared,” he added.

The Mannar mass grave – standing as the largest mass grave discovered in Sri Lanka – was the second discovered in the Mannar District since the civil war ended. Since being uncovered by builders in June 2018 during an excavation process in a land site nearby, at least 332 bodies have been exhumed, including 28 children.

Over 400 Habeus Corpus cases have been submitted by relatives of the disappeared, who have been pressing for justice for their loved ones. They firmly  believe that their loved ones who went missing war – either by surrendering or by enforced means to the Sri Lanka military – are among those buried.

Six sets of skeletal remains from the mass grave were sent to US-based Beta Analytics for radiocarbon dating and determined that the remains were dated  between 1499 to 1719.

However, independent expert and professor of forensic archaeology at the University of Keleniya, Raj Somadeva argued the carbon 14 dating alone was insufficient evidence to conclusively determine the date of the burial site and that he will publish a more conclusive report which takes into consideration the findings of analysis of the soil and other materials found in the grave.

The victims’ counsel also rejected the Beta Analytics report by stating that the radiocarbon dating was not the only way to determine the dating of the remains in a press release in March 2018;

“[t]here are several more tests, which may also have to be referred to experts for analysis and Report. Only on receipt of the reports of all such tests that any meaningful conclusion could be reached as to the age and position of such skeletal remains.”

There are widespread concerns that there has been evidence tampering and inadequate measures taken to preserve the Mannar mass grave;

- Earlier this year on February 11 for a court sitting, a door of a room housing the exhumed materials for safe keeping in Mannar magistrate’s court, was noticed to be forced access with the windows still open.

- The site of the Mannar mass grave has been unprotected, prompting fears that remains of evidence that may exist within the soil, may become contaminated, removed or lost and become inadmissible in court

Ganesharajah’s ruling further increases the belief by many that Sri Lankan judges do not care sufficiently for the victim. UN special rapporteur, Monica Pinto said in her 2016 report on Sri Lanka that “generally, judicial proceedings do not consider the victim, especially criminal proceedings. All judicial actors should have the victim in mind when working”.

The ruling deals a massive blow to the families of the disappeared, where around 70 family members have died looking for answers for their missing ones.