The Hon. M. Nizam Kariapper, PC
M. Nizam Kariapper stated that while he did not oppose the revenue objectives of the Bill, he was concerned that matters previously handled through civil and administrative processes were being converted into statutory offences without consideration of mens rea. He warned that first-time offenders could face fines and imprisonment, and proposed that imprisonment should not apply to a first offence.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 I thank the Hon. Deputy Minister for responding. On the Bill, while we do not oppose the intended revenue outcomes, earlier these were handled via civil processes and administrative decisions. Now you create statutory offences—without mens rea considerations—exposing first-time offenders to fines and imprisonment. At least the first offence should not carry imprisonment. With that point, and as my time is up, I conclude. Thank you.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 19 May 2026 ·No. 23608 ·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/29275
Cite as: The Hon. M. Nizam Kariapper, PC. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 19 May 2026. No. 23608. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/29275