Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) has filed a Supreme Court petition challenging the Anti-Corruption (Amendment) Bill, arguing that several of its clauses are inconsistent with the Constitution.
The petition was filed on 31 August in the public interest, Lanka Business Online reported. The Bill was placed on Parliament’s Order Paper on 19 August and seeks to amend the Anti-Corruption Act No. 9 of 2023.
TISL is a non-governmental anti-corruption organisation. It is not the state anti-graft agency — the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) is the body whose powers the Bill would change, and it is the subject of several of TISL’s objections rather than the party bringing them.
What TISL objects to
The petition identifies five provisions:
- Section 70 — would let the Commission empower CIABOC’s Director-General to decide whether to refrain from prosecuting accomplices in exchange for full disclosure, without the magistrate’s authorisation the current law requires. TISL said this “concentrates discretionary decision-making authority in the position of the Director-General without judicial oversight and accountability.”
- Section 80(1)(x) — would raise the state or public-corporation shareholding threshold that triggers an asset-declaration duty from 25% to 50%, exempting senior officers of state-linked companies where the state holds a minority stake. TISL said a fixed 50% test “ignores the reality of effective control through board appointments or voting rights” and conflicts with the Right to Information Act, which uses 25%.
- Section 81(e) — would remove the requirement for officials to declare the assets and liabilities of cohabitants sharing their household for at least six months. TISL said repealing it “allows corrupt officials to conceal illicit wealth by registering assets in the names of cohabiting household members.”
- Section 88 — would give CIABOC discretion to redact “any other information” it considers a privacy violation, and would criminalise using a redacted declaration for any purpose other than a formal submission. TISL said policing what the public may do with public information “creates a severe chilling effect on civic space, journalism, and free media.”
- Section 149 — would be repealed and replaced in terms that TISL said make “bail the exception and remand the norm,” calling the provision vague and overbroad.
What the government says the Bill does
The government has presented the amendments as a refinement of the 2023 Act, aligning it with United Nations standards and satisfying conditions under Sri Lanka’s International Monetary Fund Extended Fund Facility, EconomyNext reported.
Among the changes it introduces are mandatory secondary fines requiring a convicted person to pay up to three times the value of property acquired corruptly, or an amount matching the loss caused to the state, and the revocation of unlawful non-monetary advantages such as fraudulent public appointments on conviction.
The relief sought
TISL has asked the court to determine that the challenged clauses cannot become law unless passed by a two-thirds majority in Parliament and approved by the people at a referendum — the same threshold now at issue in the separate constitutional litigation over the 22nd Amendment.
Context
The Bill was presented to Parliament by Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya on 19 August. That coverage set out the Section 88 redaction offence — a fine of up to Rs. 100,000, imprisonment of up to a year, or both — as a privacy protection. TISL’s petition attacks the same provision from the opposite direction, as a restriction on what journalists and citizens may do with declarations they are entitled to see.
The 2023 Act was itself enacted as part of the governance commitments Sri Lanka undertook alongside its IMF programme. TISL had already objected to an earlier stage of this process, calling in August for the withdrawal of asset-declaration amendments gazetted on 24 July on the grounds that curtailing access would weaken public scrutiny of officeholders. The Supreme Court petition escalates that objection into a constitutional challenge.
The petition lands while the Supreme Court is already hearing a record 67 petitions on the 22nd Amendment.
What was not reported
Neither outlet said when the petition will be taken up, which bench will hear it, or whether other parties have filed against the same Bill. Neither reported a response from CIABOC, the Ministry of Justice or the Attorney-General to TISL’s claims, nor whether the government intends to amend the Bill at committee stage.
