A draft Bill to replace Sri Lanka’s 30-year-old disability rights law has been revised by the Legal Draftsman’s Department and returned to the Ministry, where the National Council for Persons with Disabilities is now being consulted on it.
The proposed legislation would repeal the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, No. 28 of 1996. Parliament’s disability body met recently under the chairmanship of MP Sugath Wasantha de Silva to review where the draft stands, the Daily Mirror reported.
Thirty years of drafts
De Silva told the meeting the need for new legislation had been discussed continuously in the three decades since the 1996 Act, and that although Sri Lanka ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2016, it has still not enacted domestic law fully aligned with the Convention.
Several Cabinet decisions have been taken since 2016. But differences have emerged between the original objectives of the proposed law and the provisions of later drafts — a gap de Silva said must be settled with all relevant stakeholders before the legislative process goes further.
Ministry officials said a model Bill drawn up by a subcommittee of National Council members had gone to the Legal Draftsman’s Department, which has revised it and sent it back. The meeting also weighed observations from the Attorney General’s Department and recommendations from the Human Rights Commission.
What members want in it
Participants pressed for an independent monitoring mechanism of the kind the Convention requires. Council representatives argued that persons with disabilities must have direct representation in making the laws and policies that affect them, invoking the principle “Nothing About Us Without Us.” Employment was the other focus: access to suitable work, equal conditions of service and pay, and reasonable accommodation in workplaces.
De Silva, Sri Lanka’s first blind MP, received the Commonwealth New Parliamentarian Award in September for his work on disability rights.
A note on names
The Daily Mirror calls the body the “Parliamentary Forum for Persons with Disabilities.” Parliament’s own records name it the Parliamentary Caucus for Persons with Disabilities, established for the Tenth Parliament on 11 March 2025 under de Silva’s chairmanship. Those records also list the deputy co-chair as Pathmanathan Sathiyalingam — the Daily Mirror renders the name in reverse order — and the member it names as “Padmini Bandara” as Padmasiri Bandara.
Not reported
The filing gives no date for the meeting beyond “recently,” no target for when the Bill might be gazetted or tabled, and no account of which provisions the later drafts changed.
