Sri Lanka Passes Anti-Corruption Amendment Amid Dispute Over Asset Disclosure and Public Scrutiny

Tougher financial penalties meet narrower public scrutiny

Sri Lanka's Parliament passed the Anti-Corruption (Amendment) Bill on October 8, 2026, with amendments and without a vote, bringing together two contested objectives: increasing financial penalties for corruption and changing who must disclose assets and how the public can use those declarations.

The proposed financial provisions require an additional penalty of at least three times the value of property acquired or converted through corruption, alongside a penalty equal to any financial loss caused to the government. Other provisions drew objections over restrictions on using published asset declarations, a higher threshold for state ownership of companies subject to certain obligations, and the proposed removal of disclosure requirements covering qualifying household partners.

Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya defended the changes as practical repairs to the Anti-Corruption Act, No. 9 of 2023. Opposition lawmakers argued that stronger penalties would not compensate for weaker opportunities to identify unexplained wealth. The International Monetary Fund also warned about risks to transparency safeguards tied to Sri Lanka's economic reform programme.

The Supreme Court had already found constitutional problems with several clauses, including restrictions on bail. Its determination distinguished between provisions that could pass by a simple majority, those requiring changes or a special majority, and a bail provision that would require both a two thirds majority and a referendum if retained unchanged.

The central uncertainty is the precise effect of the amendments made before passage. Parliamentary approval is reported, but the final consolidated wording is not established here. That distinction matters because objections to the original bill do not necessarily describe every provision Parliament ultimately approved.

From the August bill to October approval

The legislation revises a 2023 Act adopted to bring domestic law into line with international standards, particularly the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Its progress through Parliament included a constitutional challenge and a Supreme Court determination before the October debate.

• August 19, 2026: The amendment bill was placed on Parliament's Order Paper.
• August 31, 2026: Transparency International Sri Lanka filed public interest petition SC/SD 90/26 challenging several clauses.
• September 2026: The Supreme Court determination identified provisions requiring amendment or higher constitutional approval. A September 23 account detailed its findings.
• October 8, 2026: Parliament passed the bill with amendments and without a vote.

Transparency International Sri Lanka's announcement of its challenge sets out objections involving prosecution decisions, asset disclosure, public access to information and detention. Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne announced the court's determination to Parliament.

What changes for readers of asset declarations?

The 2023 Act provided for redacted asset declarations to appear on the website of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, known as CIABOC, within one month of submission. Redaction removes sensitive details from the public version, such as bank account numbers, personal identification numbers and precise addresses.

The proposed amendment restricts use of those public versions to formal submissions to authorised officers or institutions. Other uses could attract a fine of up to 100,000 rupees, imprisonment for up to one year, or both. The opposition says this threatens investigative journalism and research even when the information has already been published.

Samagi Jana Balawegaya parliamentarian Mujibur Rahman warned that the penalty would discourage scrutiny of officials' wealth.

"Because of this harsh penalty, no one will come forward to look into these matters. Knowing that this amendment could subject them to a 100,000-rupee fine and prison time, everyone will be discouraged from probing further," Rahman said.

The court considered a Committee Stage amendment exempting declarations by the President, Prime Minister, MPs, provincial councillors, elected local representatives, specified political party officers and election candidates from the restrictions. With that amendment, it found Clause 11(2) constitutionally permissible. Rahman said ministers and MPs had been removed from the proposed protection after public opposition. This makes the distinction between elected figures and other officials central to understanding the restriction's reach.

Privacy and household assets drew different findings

Transparency International Sri Lanka challenged powers to redact any other information considered to infringe privacy, arguing that undefined discretion could conceal financial details needed to identify conflicts of interest or unexplained wealth. The proposal also expands the identification category to include other numbers recognised by relevant authorities.

The Supreme Court took a different view of Clause 11(1). It found the redaction provision constitutionally acceptable when read with the regulation making procedure under Section 156. Its reasoning nevertheless required privacy to be balanced against the public interest in transparency and preventing corruption. Constitutional acceptance therefore did not settle the wider policy dispute over how much information should remain visible.

The court rejected the proposed removal of qualifying cohabitants from asset declarations. The existing requirement covers someone sharing a household with the declarant for at least six months where they have mutual rights and obligations. It does not cover a tenant, boarder, employee or temporary guest simply because they live at the same address.

The government's privacy justification treated these people as strangers. The court rejected that description and found the proposed repeal inconsistent with Article 12(1), which guarantees equality. It said the repeal should be withdrawn or passed by a special majority. The provision is identified as Section 81(e) in the petition and detailed determination account, although the passage account refers to Section 80(1)(e).

The state ownership threshold doubles

The bill raises the relevant state shareholding threshold from 25 percent to 50 percent for company coverage and asset declaration obligations. Transparency International Sri Lanka argues that this would remove senior officers of companies with substantial minority state ownership from the declaration regime, even where those companies manage public assets or contracts.

The numerical change is substantial: the qualifying ownership threshold doubles. Under wording requiring at least 50 percent ownership, companies with state stakes from 25 percent to below 50 percent would fall outside that particular test. The gazetted proposal and parts of the passage account describe the new threshold as including exactly 50 percent, while Rahman's criticism describes it as over 50 percent. The final wording is needed to resolve that boundary.

The petition also identifies a mismatch with the Right to Information Act, which uses a 25 percent ownership threshold. A company could consequently remain subject to information access obligations while its officers no longer qualify for asset disclosure under the revised ownership test.

Transparency International Sri Lanka argues that shareholding alone can miss effective state control through board appointments or voting rights. Rahman separately objected to excluding bodies such as the National Olympic Committee. These objections concern the reach of the law, rather than the severity of penalties once a covered offence is proved.

Why the bail provision faced a referendum requirement

Clause 17 proposed a special bail regime for cases involving a bribe of at least 100,000 rupees, or a government loss or benefit of at least 500,000 rupees, certified by CIABOC's Director General. Under that proposal, only the High Court could grant bail, and only in exceptional circumstances.

The Supreme Court found that the provision would prevent the magistrate who first receives an arrested person from making a meaningful decision about release. Continued detention would follow from the statute rather than an individual judicial assessment, with the suspect having to make a separate High Court application.

The court's objection was not simply that Parliament had assigned bail decisions to a particular court. It concerned whether judicial control over a person's liberty remained effective when that person first appeared before a magistrate. Article 13(2) protects against detention without such control, while Article 13(5) preserves the presumption of innocence before guilt is established.

The determination found Clause 17 inconsistent with Article 4(c), read with Article 3, concerning the judicial power of the people. Retaining it unchanged would require a two thirds parliamentary majority and approval at a national referendum. Because the bill passed with amendments, the original restriction should not be treated as the final rule without checking the enacted wording. No referendum date is identified.

Prosecution discretion and media declarations

Clause 4 would allow CIABOC to authorise its Director General to refrain from prosecuting accomplices in exchange for full disclosure, without obtaining a magistrate's authorisation. Such an arrangement can secure information from someone involved in an offence, but the petition argues that removing judicial oversight concentrates discretion in one office and exposes it to pressure.

The Supreme Court nevertheless found Clause 4 capable of passage by a simple majority, alongside Clauses 3, 6(4), 6(5) and 11(1). The result illustrates an important distinction: a provision can meet constitutional requirements while remaining disputed as a policy choice.

The court reached a different conclusion on Clause 6(7), which would replace references to media proprietors, editors and editorial staff with proprietors, chairpersons and directors of specified media companies. It found the distinction inconsistent with equality and freedom of expression, requiring a special majority if unchanged.

The court did not find that requiring journalists or media personnel to disclose assets was itself an interference with expression. Rather, it rejected the proposed distinction between people responsible for editorial content and those responsible for financial or managerial decisions.

What the government says stronger recovery will achieve

The financial provisions give substance to the government's argument that the amendment strengthens enforcement. Under the principal Act, corruption could attract rigorous imprisonment of up to ten years, a fine of up to one million rupees, or both. Recovery of government losses was left to general court discretion.

The amendment proposal requires a further penalty of at least three times the value of property acquired or converted through corruption. It also requires an additional penalty equal to the financial loss determined to have been caused to the government. These measures attach financial consequences to the value of the wrongdoing, rather than relying solely on a fixed maximum fine.

Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya told Parliament that the changes addressed implementation problems rather than weakened the framework.

"This is, in fact, an attempt to resolve the practical challenges, institutional challenges, and human resource issues encountered in implementing the anti-corruption process for the first time in Sri Lanka's history, rather than diluting it," Amarasuriya said.

Her defence and the opposition's objections address different stages of enforcement. Mandatory financial penalties operate after wrongdoing has been established. Asset declarations and public scrutiny help identify suspicious wealth before a case reaches that stage. Strengthening one does not, by itself, resolve concerns about narrowing the other.

IMF concerns and the details still to establish

IMF mission chief Evan Papageorgiou had warned that the proposed changes risked weakening safeguards around asset declarations and public ownership registers. These form part of governance benchmarks under Sri Lanka's economic reform programme. His warning placed the debate beyond domestic party politics, connecting the legislation to commitments made within that programme.

No specific funding suspension, review decision or financial penalty is identified in connection with the amendment. The warning should therefore be understood as a concern about governance standards, not evidence that an IMF disbursement has been blocked.

Rahman also alleged that the changes could shield officials or be used against opposition political leaders. Those are political allegations, not findings by the Supreme Court. The court's conclusions concerned particular constitutional provisions and did not endorse every objection raised by the opposition or Transparency International Sri Lanka.

The next legal facts to establish are the certified text and its commencement arrangements. Those would clarify how Parliament dealt with the bail clause, household disclosure, media obligations and restrictions on using declarations. Passage without a vote does not demonstrate that critics supported the bill, nor does it establish that every provision criticised before passage survived unchanged.

Key Points

• Parliament passed the amendment bill on October 8, 2026, with amendments and without a vote.
• The proposal adds financial penalties tied to corruptly acquired property and government losses.
• Restrictions on using public asset declarations could carry a 100,000 rupee fine, up to one year in prison, or both.
• The Supreme Court accepted a proposed exception for declarations by elected leaders and other specified political figures.
• The court found constitutional problems with the original bail restriction, removal of qualifying cohabitants and changes to media disclosure obligations.
• The state ownership threshold rises from 25 percent to 50 percent, narrowing coverage of companies with minority state ownership.
• The final consolidated wording is needed to establish which contested provisions remained after parliamentary amendments.