Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Bill and the Confidential-Source Test for Journalism

The constitutional challenge to the proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism law is not only about detention. For journalists, one of the sharpest questions is whether a duty to disclose information can coexist with meaningful protection for confidential sources and whistleblowers.

25 October 2026 • Lanka Witness Media Freedom Desk

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has been hearing constitutional challenges to the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill, the proposed replacement for the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Among the petitioners are media-freedom activists who argue that provisions requiring information to be supplied to authorities could endanger confidential journalistic sources.

The filing is an allegation before the Court, not a judicial finding. The published bill also contains language intended to protect legitimate journalism. The constitutional question is whether those protections are sufficiently clear and effective when read alongside offences, information duties, search powers and restrictions elsewhere in the proposed law.

Source protection is an accountability mechanism

Confidentiality is not a privilege designed for journalists' convenience. Whistleblowers often approach reporters precisely because internal channels have failed or because disclosure carries professional, legal or physical risk. Reporting on corruption, abuse of authority, security institutions and public expenditure can depend on credible assurances that a source will not casually be exposed.

Free Media Movement petitioners have argued that the bill's information-disclosure provisions could undermine that protection. Internet Media Action has separately warned that the proposed framework could affect online journalists, creators and people who share material. Human Rights Watch has criticised the bill more broadly for vague definitions and extensive executive and security powers. The government, for its part, presents the legislation as a replacement for the PTA and has revised earlier drafts.

Good-faith journalism needs legal certainty

A statutory journalism exception matters, but its value depends on whether a reporter can understand in advance what conduct is protected. If protection turns on a vague assessment after arrest, search or device seizure, the chilling effect may occur even where a prosecution never succeeds.

That is why the Court's constitutional review matters beyond this single bill. A rights-respecting counterterrorism framework should distinguish reporting, commentary, documentation and public-interest disclosure from intentional participation in terrorism. It should also require strong judicial supervision before coercive powers intrude on source confidentiality.

What Parliament should do regardless of the judgment

Constitutional minimums are not the ceiling for democratic lawmaking. Parliament can expressly protect journalistic material, create a public-interest defence, require prior judicial authorisation for source-identifying searches and provide special safeguards for material held by lawyers, journalists and rights defenders.

Lanka Witness assessment: Sri Lanka cannot credibly promise accountability while making it unnecessarily dangerous for insiders to reveal wrongdoing. Counterterrorism law should target terrorism with precision; it should not make investigative journalism collateral damage.

Image: Mystìc / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.