Sri Lanka today hit back at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay for departing from the clear procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. “We draw the attention of this body to a potentially worrying concern of a growing trend to depart from well established principals of procedure in the conduct of the affairs of this council,” Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the 18th UNHRC sessions in Geneva today.
Minister Samarasinghe said that surprising turn of events Sri Lanka was confronted with some information in the most peculiar circumstances. “On the 9th of this month at a luncheon briefing we were given to understand that the High Commissioner for Human Rights had informed a group of countries that a decision had been taken by the office of the UN Secretary General to transmit the report of his advisory panel on Sri Lanka to the office of the President of the council and hers,” he said.
He added that the previous to this communication in a course of an interaction with Pillai, there was no reference whatsoever to any such transmitting. “It was rather embarrassing that both you and I had to learn of it through a third party at the luncheon meeting with representatives of 29 member countries,” the Minister added. He also stated that Sri Lanka believes that Pillai should abide by the same principles that govern the work of the UN Human Rights Council such as universality, transparency, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity. “This incident raises concerns regarding the impartiality of the UN HR High Commissioner and such practice must be discouraged by the council,” he said.