Furthermore under section 6 of the Public Security Ordinance the armed forces can be called out of barracks to maintain law and order in each of the 25 districts by the President on the basis that the police were incapable of maintaining law and order. All police powers relating to arrest detention search etc were given to all three armed forces. This happened throughout the former regime and discontinued in March. Both the PTA and Article 157A of the Constitution jointly are preventing the emergence of democratic space in the North and East in the post-war context. The repeal of these legal instruments is required for the Tamil people to be able to self-address most of the post-war issues that have been identified. The PTA represents an aberration of the rule of law and opens the gateway to systematic abuse of human rights, giving rise especially to gross ethnic discrimination in its implementation. The kind of structural violence we have experienced during the past three decades have resulted in total collapse of institutions related to administration justice as well as other independent institutions including the electoral process in Sri Lanka. The new government today is faced with the mammoth task of spearheading a transitional justice process and rebuilding the country and the confidence of the people in these institution including that of the Police.