The Hon. Chamara Sampath Dasanayake
Hon. Chamara Sampath Dasanayake raised a question of privilege regarding his inability to travel overseas for a Chinese Ministry of Commerce programme for Sri Lankan MPs from 25 May to 5 June 2026. He stated that his passport is held by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court in connection with Bribery Commission-related cases, and that despite submitting the parliamentary and Chinese invitation documents through counsel, continued objections by Commission officials have hindered the release of the passport even with a proposed Rs. 1 million cash bail.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 It concerns violation of a Member of Parliament’s privileges.
¶ 02 Elected by the people of Badulla District to the Tenth Parliament, I have been invited by the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China for a programme for Members of the Sri Lankan Parliament, requiring overseas travel from 25.05.2026 to 05.06.2026. However, due to cases No. 42359, 42360 and 42361 before the Fort Magistrate’s Court on a reference from the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, my passport is held by the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court No. 01. Therefore, through Attorney-at-Law Mr. Kalinga Indrathissa, the Secretary-General’s letter and the Chinese invitation were submitted to Court. Due to continued objections by the Commission officials, Hon. Speaker, again with a cash bail of Rs. 1 million the passport—
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Wednesday, 20 May 2026 ·No. 23618 ·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.
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/lk/speeches/19231
Cite as: The Hon. Chamara Sampath Dasanayake. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 May 2026. No. 23618. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/19231