Sri Lanka’s newly gazetted Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill (PSTA) contains significant safeguards absent from the country’s much-criticised Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Yet beneath those reforms lies a fundamental human-rights question: does Sri Lanka need a permanent parallel system of criminal justice in which suspects can be subjected to exceptional detention, arrest, restriction and proscription powers outside ordinary criminal procedure?
The Bill, issued as a Gazette Supplement on 22 September 2026, seeks to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act No. 48 of 1979. It remains a Bill, not yet an Act of Parliament.
The new text deserves careful distinction from the version examined by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in February. OHCHR found that earlier draft required “substantive redrafting”, citing overly broad offences, threats to expression and assembly, excessive executive powers, prolonged detention and inadequate due-process protections.
The September Bill shows that some of those criticisms were taken seriously. But important structural concerns remain.
Terrorism narrowed, but exceptional reach remains
Section 3 now requires intentional or knowing conduct producing specified consequences, carried out to provoke terror among the public or unduly compel a government or international organisation, in order to advance a political or ideological objective.
Crucially, protest, advocacy, dissent, strikes, lockouts and other industrial action do not by themselves provide sufficient grounds to infer terrorist intent. Humanitarian and medical activities receive similar protection.
These are important improvements.
Yet terrorism continues to encompass conduct beyond killing, grievous injury and hostage-taking. Serious damage involving infrastructure, the environment, computer systems, communications networks and cultural property can fall within the definition where the statutory conditions are satisfied.
OHCHR’s earlier position was that terrorism should be confined much more tightly to intentional violence involving death, serious bodily injury or hostage-taking accompanied by the requisite terrorist purpose.
The concern, therefore, is not that peaceful protest automatically becomes terrorism. It is that conduct capable of prosecution under ordinary criminal law can potentially be elevated into the exceptional legal category of terrorism.
The central problem remains prolonged administrative detention
The most serious continuity with the PTA lies in detention.
Section 27 empowers the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence to issue a detention order, following an application from the IGP or an authorised DIG. An order may authorise detention for up to two months, while the aggregate maximum under detention orders is one year.
The September Bill nevertheless introduces an important limitation: detention beyond two months requires High Court approval. The detainee or lawyer may challenge the extension, and the High Court may refuse it. A detainee must also be produced before a magistrate at least once every fourteen days.
But there is a significant weakness during the initial two months. When the first detention order is placed before the magistrate, section 26 provides that the magistrate “shall make an order giving effect” to it. The stronger judicial assessment expressly provided for by the Bill arises when detention beyond two months is sought before the High Court.
This raises a central human-rights issue: judicial monitoring of a detainee’s welfare is not the same as immediate judicial determination of whether continued detention itself is necessary and lawful.
An independent review mechanism, but not an independent decision
The Bill establishes an Independent Review Committee, chaired by a former Supreme Court or Court of Appeal judge, empowered to examine the necessity, legality and proportionality of detention orders.
However, the committee can only recommend that a detention order be confirmed, varied or revoked. The ultimate decision remains with the Minister, who must consider the recommendation and provide reasons.
The mechanism therefore provides scrutiny, but not an independent power to terminate detention.
Military powers over civilians remain
The Bill also extends certain search and arrest powers to members of the armed forces and Coast Guard.
The September version restricts their exercise to specified circumstances, including situations where police are unavailable, immediate intervention is necessary to prevent an imminent terrorist act, or the armed forces have lawfully been deployed for public-order or counter-terrorism operations. An arrested person must generally be handed over to police within 24 hours.
These limitations improve the earlier framework. Nevertheless, they institutionalise a role for the military in civilian law enforcement under permanent legislation, retaining questions concerning civilian policing, oversight and accountability.
Free expression safeguards are substantially stronger
Some earlier criticism of the PSTA concerning journalism and social media can no longer fairly be applied to the September Bill.
Sections 9 and 10 criminalise inducing terrorism and disseminating terrorist publications, but the new provisions require intention or knowledge, rather than the broader recklessness formulation criticised by OHCHR in the earlier version.
The Bill also explicitly protects good-faith journalism, commentary, academic research, education, artistic expression, human-rights documentation and advocacy, legal proceedings, public-interest communication, criticism and legitimate political dissent. Mere expression of opinion, belief, sympathy, criticism or dissent is protected unless accompanied by intent to incite terrorism and a “real and objective risk” of such an offence.
This represents a significant improvement.
Nevertheless, section 10 remains relevant to digital rights because dissemination encompasses distributing, transmitting, providing access to and possessing terrorist publications where the necessary intention or knowledge exists.
The critical issue is therefore not whether an innocent Facebook share or WhatsApp forward automatically becomes terrorism. It is how concepts such as knowledge, intention and “indirect inducement” will be interpreted and applied in practice.
Broad “confidential information” provisions deserve scrutiny
Another potential concern lies in the definition of “confidential information”.
It includes certain information relating to police and armed-forces activities, the movements or whereabouts of specified persons, detention facilities and investigations. Section 8 additionally criminalises gathering or supplying confidential information where there is knowledge or reasonable grounds to believe that another person will use it in connection with offences under the Act. A public-interest safeguard is included.
Given the importance of documenting police and military conduct to journalism and human-rights monitoring, the practical interpretation of these provisions merits close attention.
Stronger protections against torture and coerced confessions
The Bill contains significant safeguards against abuses historically associated with the PTA.
Statements to magistrates are subject to voluntariness requirements and audio-visual recording. A statement made to a magistrate cannot be admitted against the accused without specified Judicial Medical Officer examinations before and after it was recorded.
Magistrates must make unannounced monthly visits to approved detention facilities. The Human Rights Commission can also conduct unannounced visits, inspect records and interview detainees. The Bill establishes procedures for medical examination and investigation where torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is suspected.
These safeguards should be recognised as substantive improvements rather than dismissed as cosmetic changes.
Rehabilitation provisions have also been significantly improved
The Bill retains provisions permitting the Attorney General to defer proceedings or suspend prosecution subject to High Court-supervised conditions that may include rehabilitation.
However, consent must be voluntary and free from coercion. More importantly, the Bill expressly provides that such conditions cannot require an admission of guilt or infringe the presumption of innocence.
This substantially answers one of the serious criticisms directed at the previous proposal.
The deeper problem: exceptional justice remains
Ultimately, the strongest human-rights criticism of the September Bill is not that it simply reproduces the PTA. That would overlook significant reforms.
The deeper concern is that it continues to construct an exceptional criminal-justice system alongside ordinary criminal law.
Section 41 expressly excludes sections 115 and 116 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in relation to suspects under the Bill. Section 70 further provides that the PSTA prevails where it conflicts with other written laws. The legislation establishes its own detention orders, restriction orders, proscription regime, military arrest powers and specialised procedures.
That should become the real test of the legislation.
After decades of controversy surrounding the PTA, the benchmark cannot simply be whether the new law is less repressive than the PTA.
The more demanding test is whether every exceptional power is strictly necessary and proportionate; whether deprivation of liberty is under effective judicial control from the outset; whether journalists, activists, minorities and political dissenters are protected from arbitrary application of national-security legislation; and whether offences capable of being prosecuted through ordinary criminal law genuinely need to be transformed into terrorism offences carrying exceptional consequences.
On that measure, the September Bill represents real reform of the PTA framework, but not yet a complete departure from its underlying philosophy of exceptional state power.
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