Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Bill Challenges Keep Growing — Parliament Should Not Treat Scrutiny as a Formality

On the final sitting day of the parliamentary week, the Speaker again announced receipt of a Supreme Court petition challenging the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill. The continuing litigation is not a procedural footnote: it is a warning that replacement of the PTA will be judged by safeguards, not labels.

24 October 2026 • Lanka Witness Evidence Desk

Parliament’s official record for 23 October states that Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne announced receipt of another petition filed in the Supreme Court in respect of the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill. That follows a succession of petitions recorded during the week and comes after Amnesty International published a fresh legal assessment warning that the bill still leaves wide scope for abuse.

The petitions themselves are challenges, not findings. The Supreme Court must determine the constitutional questions before it, and Parliament will then decide how to proceed within the constitutional framework. Lanka Witness therefore does not treat allegations in petitions as established defects. But the scale and persistence of scrutiny make one point difficult to dismiss: this legislation touches powers that have a long record of controversy and demands unusually careful justification.

The benchmark is not whether the PTA disappears

The government proposes to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. That is significant. Yet both Amnesty International and Sri Lanka’s own Human Rights Commission have argued that repeal alone does not answer the human-rights problem. The HRCSL has recommended that terrorism offences be dealt with through general law, and has called for a narrower definition of terrorism, judicial oversight of detention, meaningful judicial bail powers, prompt access to lawyers and greater independence for the proposed review mechanism.

Amnesty’s 21 October assessment acknowledges improvements from the earlier draft, but argues that the definition remains overly broad and that protected activities such as protest, advocacy and industrial action are not expressly excluded. Amnesty also objects to detention architecture that it says could leave a person detained for a lengthy period before trial.

Why this matters to journalists and civil society

Counterterrorism legislation operates in the shadow of Sri Lanka’s experience with the PTA. Human-rights organisations have documented its use against critics and minorities over many years. That history does not prove that every future power will be abused. It does, however, strengthen the case for precise offences, independent judicial control, access to counsel and explicit protection for lawful journalism, protest, advocacy and humanitarian work.

For foreign missions and international organisations following Sri Lanka’s reform commitments, the relevant question is therefore measurable: does the final law materially reduce opportunities for arbitrary detention and criminalisation of protected expression?

Lanka Witness assessment: Constitutional review should be treated as substantive democratic scrutiny, not an obstacle to be cleared. If repeated petitions expose ambiguity or weak safeguards, Parliament has both the power and responsibility to repair them before creating another long-lived security statute.

Image: Parliament of Sri Lanka / Wikimedia Commons. Free-use Commons file; see source page for licence and attribution details.