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

¶ 01 Thank you. This is important. When a person is sentenced abroad—for example, to ten years—the commitment papers state that term. In Sri Lanka, domestic prisoners may receive statutory remissions. But for transferred prisoners, we are bound by the transfer agreement and the sentencing state’s law. Our prison authorities cannot apply local remission to a foreign-imposed sentence unless the documentation explicitly provides for it.

¶ 02 Some jurisdictions (e.g., the UK) indicate in documentation how remission operates, allowing us to implement it here. The difficulty arises when foreign documentation does not set out remission or time-served details clearly, leading to continued running of the full foreign sentence post-transfer. This is not a Prisons Department lapse but a treaty/ documentation issue; we will look into standardizing requirements and clarifying procedures so that eligible remission/time-served abroad can be properly credited in Sri Lanka.