10th Parliament· 154 sittings on record · 30,475 speeches · latest 10 June 2026

The Hon. Harshana Nanayakkara, Attorney-at-Law

Jathika Jana balawegaya· Colombo· 20 February 2025 ·Oral question: Oral Question: Prison Officer Staffing and Overcrowding (Q.2/2025)

Justice & Human RightsSecurity & Defence
AI summary generated by gpt-5.5

Harshana Nanayakkara stated that while nationwide wartime-style checkpoints are unnecessary, court premises require stronger security measures and action will be taken. He said amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure are before Cabinet to allow testimony via video link, reducing the need to produce remand prisoners in court and assisting witnesses, including those overseas. He indicated the Government aims to bring the amendments to Parliament by March or April and enact them as a longer-term solution.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Preventing such incidents is not only a matter of maximum security. Unlike wartime, nationwide checkpoints are unnecessary, but court premises must have adequate protection, and we will act. We are also bringing amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure—already before Cabinet—to enable testimony via video links so remand prisoners need not be produced in court to give evidence. We aim to bring it to Parliament by March/April and pass it. This will also help witnesses, including those abroad. This is the lasting solution.

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Thursday, 20 February 2025 ·No. 1740657427093848 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
Page · column
not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
Permalink
/lk/speeches/16378

Cite as: The Hon. Harshana Nanayakkara, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 February 2025. No. 1740657427093848. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/16378