The Hon. (Dr.) Nishantha Samaraweera
Hon. (Dr.) Nishantha Samaraweera sought clarification on how COPE findings can be moved into formal legal processes, noting public concern that inquiries do not always lead to legal action. He said COPE often hears from officials and former board members, while alleged wrongdoing may originate with political authorities, citing the dairy cattle matter and the National Gem and Jewellery Authority matter. He proposed that, before COPE reports are tabled, relevant legal authorities review them to identify possible legal steps.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Minister, I seek a clarification.
¶ 02 Today’s debate was intended exactly for this purpose. However, I did not hear from the Opposition any constructive proposal. We conducted many COPE inquiries, including some recently. But beyond COPE, there is a public perception that matters are not moving into formal legal processes. We must distinguish that most witnesses coming before COPE are public officials or former board members of public enterprises, while the origins of wrongdoing often lie with political authorities. Sometimes officials reveal how politicians directed them, but often this is not exposed.
¶ 03 In the dairy cattle matter and the National Gem and Jewellery Authority matter, we observed many such instances. Our wish is that, before tabling the report, a review be done by the legal arms to see what legal steps can follow. There is a gap that the public needs clarified. From your side—
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Thursday, 19 June 2025 ·No. 1751430648025512 ·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/27522
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Nishantha Samaraweera. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 19 June 2025. No. 1751430648025512. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/27522