A high powered committee appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to examine the status quo of 147 prisoners condemned to death, but who continue to serve life terms without any specific period for their release, last week recommended that 60 inmates be pardoned and released immediately.

These death rowers were languishing in jail indefinitely due to lapses in the administration of justice during the former UNP Government, Justice Ministry sources said yesterday.

The committee reviewed each case individually before making its recommendations, the sources said.

The committee’s recommendations were handed over to Justice Minister Dilan Perera to be forwarded to the President. Chaired by retired High Court Judge G. L. M. de Silva, this committee comprised additional secretary to the Ministry of Justice, Mrs Kamalini de Silva, assistant secretary Pumanthi Pieris and the former Commissioner General Of Prisons H. G. Dharmadasa, secretary to the Ministry of Justice Suhada K. Gamlath said.

Meanwhile, the inordinate delay over the past several years since 2004 in commuting death sentences to life imprisonment has resulted in the Prisons Department reaching breaking point in terms of congestion with close to a thousand dangerous convicts being held indefinitely, prison sources said

The government moved in to review the fate of the 147 death rowers who had been serving life sentences without a specific period for their release after the convicts got on to the roof of the Chapel section in the Welikade prison and protested that they had been discriminated.

The protesters complained that while they had languished in prison — some up to 18 years, 23 other death rowers had been granted specific terms of imprisonment during the term of the former UNP government.

When contacted, the former Commissioner General of Prisons H. G. Dharmadasa told the Sunday Island yesterday that before 1999, the life term of all death rowers were reviewed every four years in conformity with the Prisons Ordinance and the review report forwarded to the Justice Ministry for recommendation for release.

But, with President Chandrika Kumaratunga assuming office there was a policy decision that life sentences should be commuted only after a prisoner serves a mandatory term of 20 years with general amnesties being granted on three to four occasions a year. At present, amnesties are granted only once a year under Article 34 (1) of the Constitution

Subsequently, with the formation of the UNP government in 2002, the prisons department was brought under the administration of the Ministry of Interior, and as they were not clear about policy the life terms of 23 death rowers was specified.

Retired Judge of the High court G. L. M. de Silva said that they interviewed each prisoner before reviewing the Observations made by the sentencing Judges, nature of the crime they had committed whether it was gruesome murder, the prisoner’s conduct in prison, the period they had served before recommending their release.

There would be no recommendations to reduce the life terms of those who committed grave crimes against society as the High Court Judge Sarath Ambepetiya murder case, Reita Jones murder case, Hokandhara murder case, he said.