Assessing Damage, Urging Action the legislation would inevitably lead to serious human rights violations, noting at the time of the enactment of the PTA: “A power to detain suspects for long periods, without the opportunity for access by friends, family, or lawyers, or for regular judicial review, notoriously carries the danger that the detainees will be maltreated while in custody: it provides an open invitation for deprivation, assault, and worse – especially if the suspects may be detained by their interrogators in police stations or army camps – and more especially still, if no real control is exercised over the periods for which that they are detained.” 56 If it is widely known, and predicted in advance, that a reduction in basic safeguards will lead to serious human rights violations, the question arises as to the real intention of the authors of special counter-terrorist legislation. Does counter-terrorism legislation really aim at upholding security and reducing levels of violence, or rather at giving a license to the security forces to respond as they think fit? A prominent human rights scholar suggested: “Sri Lanka’s experience with emergency powers, and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) illuminates the complex interaction between violence and repression by the state, and violence and terror by non-state actors. Many commentators maintain that the draconian measures taken by Sri Lanka have only enhanced the cycle of violence, leading to the destruction of the social and political fabric of a democratic society. The use of unbridled power by state authorities in both the north and south of the island, has led to many deaths, mounting disillusionment, and violent backlash by aggrieved communities […]. The use of these powers has also helped develop a culture of repression and impunity among members of the security establishment. The lack of a reasonable and effective response to terrorist activity committed by non-state actors has led to more social unrest and the dominance of military considerations in the resolution of essentially political dilemmas.” 57 The information presented to the Panel suggests that changes to the normal criminal justice system have frequently created institutional incentives to torture or ill-treat prisoners and inflict other serious human rights violations. There is also the risk that counter-terrorist measures are built up over time, and it is the cumulative impact 56 Paul Sieghart, Sri Lanka, A Mounting Tragedy of Errors, Report of a Mission to Sri Lanka in January 1984 on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists and its British Section, JUSTICE, International Commission of Jurists, London, 1984, p. 37-38. 57 Radhika Coomaraswamy and Charmaine de los Reyes, “Rule by Emergency: Sri Lanka’s Post Colonial Constitutional Experience”, in International Journal of Constitutional Law, Vol.2, No. 2, April 2004, p. 272. 39