A/HRC/45/45/Add.1 71. No discussion about judicial independence in Sri Lanka can omit a reference to the Supreme Court decision of 13 December 2018 ruling that the President’s attempted dissolution of Parliament in November 2018, which followed the attempted dismissal of the Prime Minister in October 2018, was unconstitutional. This decision shows the progress that the judiciary has made in upholding the rule of law, the principle of the separation of powers and constitutional and fundamental rights. 72. Judicial independence, however, needs to be institutionalized. In general, good governance cannot rely solely, or even mainly, on individuals of great virtue and extraordinary courage. Constitutional recognition of the judiciary as an independent power (enshrined in article 4 of the Constitution, especially subparagraph (c)) can be strengthened and, while progress has been made in terms of the appointments to the High Courts (through the adoption of the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution in 2015), a lot of work remains to be done regarding security of tenure, 35 conditions of service,36 personnel administration and disciplinary matters in the judiciary, including promotions and dismissals,37 as well as training on international crimes.38 73. Like many countries that have experienced protracted conflict, Sri Lanka has ended up with a large, unwieldy and expensive security sector, in which the typical functional distinctions between internal policing and public order roles and external defence roles are blurred and where intelligence functions, under constitutional provisions, reporting to civilian authorities and with judicial oversight, have become unconstrained. 39 A situation of internal conflict in which the armed forces are given extensive powers to regulate civilian lives leads to the weakening of civilian institutions, including the police, oversight bodies and even the civilian dimensions of the Ministry of Defence. Such a situation usually results in the forces becoming autonomous from the State’s other branches of power and to the intelligence services becoming bloated. This is a recipe for unaccountability, violations of human rights and applicable international humanitarian law and untold expenses. 74. In the current post-conflict era, Sri Lanka urgently needs to strengthen its civilian capacities for defence planning and to rationalize the structure of its armed forces accordingly. It is unlikely that the new threats faced by the Government can be effectively met with the same forces that were used to face an internal insurgency. Moreover, it is unlikely that intelligence services that have gotten used to practicing a heavy-handed form of surveillance of the civilian population, that a security sector that remains virtually monoethnic and that a police force in which the pervasiveness of torture and abuse 40 goes hand in hand with its demonstrable dearth of investigatory capacities can best serve the country, as the tragic events of 21 April 2019 indicate. 75. From a prevention standpoint, the establishment of dispersed, multilevel and effectively coordinated civilian oversight mechanisms under a clear constitutional mandate and with operative judicial supervision is indispensable. These oversight mechanisms should incorporate, among other things, real vetting procedures that prevent the promotion of people with questionable human rights records, something that still eludes the current forces. 76. During his visit, the Special Rapporteur had the opportunity to meet representatives of the upper ranks of the security forces on several occasions and was left with the impression that there was more willingness among the forces to participate in credible accountability processes than the political discourse often suggested. It is imperative to follow this path in order to achieve a professional, apolitical security sector capable of providing the security guarantees the country needs, in a manner compatible both with the democratic principle of the rule of law and with the Government’s international legal obligations. 35 36 37 38 39 40 14 On arbitrary removals of judges, see CCPR/C/LKA/CO/5, para. 5. The salary and the working conditions presently make judicial appointments less attractive than other legal professions. A/HRC/35/31/Add.1, paras. 39 ff. The strengthening of judicial independence should be accompanied by a corresponding strengthening of judicial accountability through the adoption of a code of conduct (A/HRC/35/31/Add.1, para. 50). A/70/438. A/HRC/34/54/Add.2.