The Hon. (Ms.) Lakmali Hemachandra, Attorney-at-Law
Hon. Lakmali Hemachandra argued that the Minister of Finance has lawful authority to withhold information from Parliament where disclosure would harm national security, negotiations, litigation, or government commercial activities. She emphasized that Parliament’s control over public finance is defined by the Constitution and law, and cautioned against demanding immediate disclosure beyond those legal limits.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 I will conclude briefly, Mr. Presiding Member.
¶ 02 The Minister of Finance is empowered, where disclosure would prejudice national security, negotiations, litigation, or commercial activities of the Government of Sri Lanka, to withhold information from Parliament. Therefore, do not muddle these matters. Parliament’s power of control over public finance is clearly set out in the Constitution and the law. Do not arrogate powers not vested, and then demand that everything be reported to Parliament the next day.
¶ 03 Thank you very much.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 5 May 2026 ·No. 23546 ·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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Cite as: The Hon. (Ms.) Lakmali Hemachandra, Attorney-at-Law. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 5 May 2026. No. 23546. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/19947