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

The Hon. Harshana Nanayakkara, Attorney-at-Law - Minister of Justice and National Integration

Jathika Jana balawegaya· Colombo· 21 October 2025 ·Oral question: Oral Question 9: First Prison in Sri Lanka and Prison Conditions

Justice & Human Rights
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The Minister of Justice and National Integration provided answers to a parliamentary question on prison facilities and inmate accommodation. He stated that Welikada Prison was established in 1844, tabled annexes containing requested data, and cited accommodation standards for cells and wards. He also identified Wariyapola Prison as relevant to the question, with a capacity of 1,188 and an average inmate population of 1,636 in August 2025.

Verbatim record (translated)

Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English

¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, the answers are as follows.

¶ 02 (a) (i) Welikada Prison, established in 1844. (ii) Data not available. (iii) See Annex 01. (iv) See Annex 01. (v) See Annex 02. (Annex 02 tabled.) (vi) Cell (single-occupancy): 5.4 sq. metres (min) per inmate; Ward: 35 sq. metres per inmate (as per standards when higher occupancy, figures tabled for clarity).

¶ 03 (b) (i) Wariyapola Prison. (ii) 1,188. (iii) Average in August 2025: 1,636.

¶ 04 (c) Not applicable.

¶ 05 (Annexes 01 and 02 tabled.)

Provenance

Source
Hansard, Tuesday, 21 October 2025 ·No. 22635 ·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. Harshana Nanayakkara, Attorney-at-Law - Minister of Justice and National Integration. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 21 October 2025. No. 22635. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/29552