The demolition of the Soul Beach restaurant in Dehiwala is questionable in several ways.
One of the biggest concerns in the general society is whether the authorities had the necessary permissions and reasons to demolish it, because the publicly available information regarding the incident showed no such permissions or reasons apart from what is said by various parties. Above all, the manner in which legal actions are being taken against the restaurant is questionable. As per the restaurant’s management, no notice had been given by the authorities regarding the demolition or their conclusion that that was an illegal construction, and the videos of the demolition show an individual said to be from the management asking for the relevant court order from the authorities but to no avail.
It is noteworthy that this demolition comes in a context where the Police has alleged links between the restaurant and money earned through the drug trade in the wake of the Yukthiya (Justice) anti-drug and anti-organised crime operation. Both the allegations, i.e. the restaurant being linked to drug money and it being an illegal construction, were raised at once. Firstly, a number of other restaurants are also located in the same area, and many raise a reasonable question as to on what grounds, only that restaurant was isolated to be determined as an illegal construction that is fully or partially located within the lands of the Coastal Conservation and Coastal Resource Management Department. Another question raised by the restaurant’s management is whether the authorities had actually determined which part of the establishment had in fact violated the laws that are said to have been violated. Secondly, with regard to the alleged links to the drug trade, no publicly available information shows the establishment of such a connection through a formal investigation, and even the Police force has not publicly acknowledged the conduct of such an investigation.
Regardless of the reason, the authorities’ conduct during the demolition is questionable. Videos show those authorities making no efforts to deescalate the situation by explaining the related legal situation or by presenting the related orders, despite requests for the presentation of a court order to demolish the restaurant. If this was in fact a result of the allegations of the restaurant being linked to drug money, we have to ask what happened to the principle of the presumption of innocence, the due process, and proving allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, which are basic principles accepted in Sri Lanka’s law. In a context where the country has not heard of any investigation proving such a link, does this mean that the authorities, especially the Police, decides who is guilty and what they are guilty of at their own discretion? Regardless of the status of the ongoing legal actions, the Police should provide an explanation as to what the basis of their actions was.
In a context where the Yukthiya operation seems to be normalising on the spot and random searches, arrests, and the confiscation of properties, this situation has attracted the attention of legal experts too. The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) emphasises that the Police cannot on their own decide many of the actions taken during the Yukthiya operation, and that ideally and according to the law, such actions should be determined through the Judiciary. The BASL notes that Sri Lanka is not a Police State.
The climate surrounding the demolition of the said restaurant is a symptom of a bigger issue. That is the supposed enforcement of the law without adhering to the guidelines and procedures stipulated in the law. In the recent past, Sri Lanka has witnessed many occasions where Police officers did not respect the citizens’ rights when enforcing the law, and acted in an arbitrary and unlawful manner. Even during the process that led to the demolition of the said restaurant, i.e. the Yukthiya operation which has supposedly revealed links between the said restaurant and drug money, the country saw several questionable acts committed by the Police. The Police was seen entering and searching randomly selected houses, when in reality, an act as simple as searching a house should be based on reasonable suspicion and often a search warrant based on concrete reasons.
The name Yukthiya means “justice”. If Sri Lanka is trying to serve justice to the people through unlawful, arbitrary and oppressive means, that is unlikely to serve any true justice.