Category: Legal

GENEVA, Oct 30, 2007 (AFP) – The UN’s top torture expert, Manfred Nowak, said on Tuesday that torture — including beatings, asphyxiation and burning — was becoming “routine” during counter-terrorism operations in Sri Lanka.Nowak said in statement on his mission to the conflict-torn Indian Ocean island earlier this month that there was evidence that “torture […]

Oct 31, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s bribery and corruption commission has vast powers to probe official misdeeds but cannot act except on a complaint and has its impartiality questioned by the presence of police investigators. Although commission officials say it is one of the most flexible and authoritative bodies compared to similar departments around […]

COLOMBO, Oct 26, 2007 (AFP) – Sri Lanka on Friday ordered the closure of a Colombo radio station, charging that it had sparked panic with a false report of a rebel attack against civilians, officials said.The ABC radio station was ordered off the air following an investigation into a report broadcast Wednesday, media ministry officials […]

October 13, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s supreme court has been asked to probe the allocation of over 50 billion rupees in next year’s budget for unspecified spending outside the authority of parliament which has raised suspicions of a hidden fund. The Court is expected to announce this week if it will allow the case […]

Oct 12, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lankan companies should keep a close tab on the trade marks registry to ensure protection of their own marks, an intellectual property rights lawyer said Monday. Not being alert may result in copycat competitors registering similar trade marks and capturing market share, president’s counsel Harsha Cabral said. From multinational […]

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) – An Islamist lawmaker in Kuwait called for the interior ministry on Tuesday to draw up a blacklist of employers who mistreat their domestic helpers and urged stiff penalties for physical abuse.MP Waleed al-Tabtabai said in a statement that employers who abuse their maids “physically or morally” should be […]

Oct 01, 2007 (LBO) – The United States visa lottery for would-be immigrants will be opened on Wednesday, October 3, and participation is without any charge, the US embassy in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo said. Lottery winners will be notified between May and July, 2008 and have a one-year window in which they may […]

KOMOTINI, Greece, Sept 29, 2007 (AFP) – Greek border guards arrested 69 illegal immigrants and seven suspected people smugglers who were trying to enter the country from Turkey, police said on Saturday.The immigrants, all men aged between 25 and 45, were from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka. The group had on Friday crossed […]

Sept 27, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s new company law has made it easier to start new ventures but winding up procedures are still cumbersome, a new World Bank study has said. In countries where bankruptcy is inefficient, unviable businesses linger for years, keeping assets and human capital from being reallocated to more productive uses, […]

Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) – High taxes and red tape are eroding confidence in Sri Lanka, one of the worst places to do business in South Asia, a study by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) showed Wednesday. The research which ranked 178 countries around the world on trade, taxation, business start-up costs, labour laws and […]

Sept 26, 2007 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has slipped ten places in a global ranking of public sector corruption, the latest study by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International shows. . The island was placed the 94th least transparent country among 180 nations in 2007, down from 84th place a year earlier in a corruption perceptions index […]

Sept 14, 2007 (LBO) – The hearing of the case on the sale Sri Lanka Telecom shares by its Japanese shareholder has been put off till November 22, lawyers said. Lawmaker Sripathi Sooriyarachchi who was sacked earlier in the year as a minister by President Mahinda Rajapakse, went to court alleging that the sale caused […]