Update, 14 October — a verified newsroom has now published the Bill’s clauses in its own right, and supplies the comparison that measures them. The Daily Mirror’s clause-by-clause analysis establishes that the Bill’s 72-hour detention period replaces an ordinary-law limit of 24 hours. See What the Daily Mirror adds at the foot of this article.
Update, 11 October — the Bill’s text is now public, and it is far broader than the first filings suggested. The Sunday Times has published its definitions and detention powers, and the Centre for Policy Alternatives has called for the Bill to be withdrawn, saying it “creates a parallel regime of arrest and detention that has the potential to entrench torture”. See What the Bill actually says below.
A bill creating a dedicated legal framework against organised criminal groups has been published in the government gazette, two newsrooms reported on Tuesday — the second major security bill to move through the legislative pipeline this week.
The Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill is intended to provide the legal provisions needed to prevent organised crime, to enable more effective action against serious offences, and to protect society from the threats posed by organised criminal groups, the Daily Mirror reported.
The international dimension is the substance of it
The most specific thing either filing says about the bill’s content concerns what sits beyond Sri Lanka’s borders. The legislation is intended to establish the legal framework needed to give effect to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, particularly in addressing organised criminal activity that extends beyond national boundaries.
It also aims to strengthen both national and international cooperation in preventing and combating serious crimes — language that points at the practical obstacle in cases involving networks that operate partly offshore, where Sri Lankan investigators depend on the cooperation of foreign agencies.
Hiru News reported the same measure, describing the bill as aimed at protecting society from criminal groups and covering both the prevention of organised crime and the legal action to be taken against such offences. It directed readers to the gazette notification itself for further detail.
A discrepancy in tense — since resolved
The two filings did not agree on whether the step had been completed. Hiru stated the bill had been published in the government gazette. The Daily Mirror’s wording was prospective — “steps have been taken to gazette” the bill — which described the process as under way rather than finished. Neither outlet gave a gazette number or publication date.
Hiru’s tense was the correct one. The Centre for Policy Alternatives, in a statement issued on 8 October, dates the gazetting to 6 October 2026 — the day of the original reports — and links to the gazetted text itself.
The second security bill — on the same day
The gazetting came not merely in the same week as the Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill, which was presented to Parliament for its first reading, but on the same day. CPA makes the point directly, saying the coincidence “raises serious questions about the Government’s timing and motive.”
The two are separate pieces of legislation with different subject matter — one directed at terrorism offences, the other at organised criminal groups — but they placed two substantial expansions of the state’s criminal-law powers before Parliament on a single day.
Update, 11 October: what the Bill actually says
A third verified newsroom has now reported on the Bill, and it is the first to publish its operative text. The Sunday Times reported on Sunday that the Bill “contains sweeping language” defining its central terms, and allows the Secretary of the Ministry in charge of the Police to order a suspect’s detention for up to one year.
This answers most of what was flagged as unreported below.
The definitions track the UN convention
An “organised criminal group” is defined as a “structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.”
A “structured group” is one “that is not randomly formed for the immediate commission of a serious crime and that does not need to have formally defined roles for its members, continuity of its membership or a developed structure.”
This article previously flagged as unreported whether the Bill would define the term in the convention’s own words. It does: both definitions closely follow Article 2 of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, as does the four-year threshold described below. That is consistent with the Bill’s stated purpose — but, as set out further down, it is also the basis of the objection that the convention does not require most of what else the Bill contains.
What counts as a “serious crime”
Clause 3 defines a serious crime as any offence punishable with four years’ imprisonment or more, together with a long schedule of further offences drawn from other statutes — among them the Antiquities Ordinance, the Assistance to and Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses Act, the Chemical Weapons Convention Act, the Computer Crime Act, the Excise Ordinance, the Fauna and Flora Protection Ordinance, the Gambling Regulatory Authority Act, the Intellectual Property Act and the Penal Code.
Conviction by a High Court of membership of an organised criminal group for the purpose of committing a serious crime carries five to 20 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs. 1 million.
How membership is proved
In deciding whether a person is a member of such a group, a court may consider whether they attended physical or virtual meetings with known members; whether known members — current or former — identify them as a member; whether they adopt the style of dress, hand signs, language or tattoos used by known members; and whether they associate with known members.
The detention power
The Secretary of the Ministry in charge of the Police — at present the Secretary to the Ministry of Public Security — may issue detention orders holding a suspect for two months at a time, extendable to a maximum of one year. This is an executive official, not a court.
Update, 11 October: the Centre for Policy Alternatives calls for withdrawal
The Centre for Policy Alternatives has called on the government to withdraw the Bill in its present form, in a statement issued on 8 October and reported by the Sunday Times. The CPA says the Bill is “framed in broad, vague and sweeping language and contains few, if any, meaningful safeguards”, that it “rolls back hard-won protections in the ordinary criminal law”, and that it “creates a parallel regime of arrest and detention that has the potential to entrench torture and severely curtail fundamental rights.”
CPA’s full statement goes considerably further than the passages the Sunday Times quoted, and cites the Bill clause by clause. Its principal points:
- No consultation. The Bill was drafted without any public consultation.
- The convention argument is reversed. Sri Lanka ratified the UN convention in 2006, and CPA says there has been no known public discussion of implementing legislation in the twenty years since — so compliance does not explain the timing. It calls the framing “disingenuous”, arguing that “compliance with the Convention does not require most of what the Bill contains.”
- A PTA in substance. CPA says the Bill would reintroduce many of the Prevention of Terrorism Act’s most criticised features under a different name, at a time when the government has committed to repealing the PTA, and “would in effect completely negate even the most basic procedural improvements sought to be made by the PSTA.”
- Breadth. Under clause 3, CPA says the schedule reaches offences as ordinary as bigamy, forgery, theft, copyright infringement, unlicensed gambling, forest offences and obstructing a public servant.
- Criminalising association. The membership indicia in clause 4(2) “risk criminalising association rather than conduct” and “may be used against young people, marginalised communities, protesters and dissenting voices.”
- The detention regime. Under clause 20(1) a suspect need not be produced before a Magistrate for up to 72 hours; under clause 21 the Ministry Secretary may then order detention in police custody for up to a year; and under clause 20(3)(a) the Magistrate “has no discretion and must give effect to such an order.” Under clause 25, people already on remand may be returned to police custody and held in isolation. Under clause 23, bail may be granted only by the High Court — in some cases only in exceptional circumstances — and a suspect may be held on remand for up to a year before indictment.
- Evidence. Clause 46 removes the protections in sections 25, 26 and 30 of the Evidence Ordinance; clause 47 makes confessions to police officers of the rank of Assistant Superintendent and above admissible; clause 48 admits statements by people who cannot be cross-examined; clause 50 admits evidence of past conduct and association to prove membership.
- Surveillance. Clause 17 permits searches without warrant; clauses 28 and 45 provide for digital surveillance including interception of communications; under clause 44(4) senior officers may obtain subscriber, call and location data without any court order; under clause 45 they may compel the unlocking of encrypted devices. Clause 14 restricts media reporting of court proceedings, and clause 59 is described as a sweeping immunity clause shielding officials.
CPA also identifies what it treats as a drafting failure: because the clause 3 threshold refers to imprisonment “of either description”, offences such as murder, rape and robbery — which carry death or rigorous imprisonment only — “may arguably fall outside the Bill’s scope.”
The Centre for Policy Alternatives is not among the newsrooms this site treats as a verified source. Its statement is a primary document published by the organisation itself, reported here as carried by the Sunday Times and read directly; it is cited for CPA’s own position, not as independent confirmation of the Bill’s contents.
Not reported
The gazette date is now established as 6 October 2026 via CPA, and the Bill’s definitions, penalties, detention powers, evidentiary changes and surveillance provisions are set out above. What remains open is largely procedural.
No filing names the minister presenting the Bill or gives the date on which it will be placed before Parliament, and none reports whether it has been referred for a pre-enactment constitutionality challenge — the window for which opens once a bill is placed on the Order Paper, and which is the obvious route for the objections CPA raises. There is no reported response from the government to CPA’s call for withdrawal, and no comment from the Bar Association, the Human Rights Commission or the opposition.
Neither the Sunday Times nor CPA states whether the Bill creates a dedicated investigating authority, how it interacts with the existing Prevention of Money Laundering and asset-forfeiture regimes, or what becomes of cases currently brought under ordinary criminal law. CPA describes its statement as “an initial statement” addressing “some of the most egregious provisions” rather than an exhaustive analysis, and says it may publish a fuller commentary later.
One point of tension within the reporting is worth recording. The Bill is presented as implementing the UN convention, and its core definitions do follow the convention’s wording. CPA’s objection is not that the definitions are wrong but that the convention is being used to carry provisions it does not require. No filing reports a government response to that specific argument.
Update, 14 October: what the Daily Mirror adds
A verified newsroom has now set out the Bill’s contested clauses in its own reporting, rather than relaying a rights group’s analysis. The Daily Mirror published a clause-by-clause breakdown on Wednesday of the provisions it says “have sparked considerable public debate.”
That matters for how this article is sourced. Until now every clause number recorded above reached this desk through the Centre for Policy Alternatives — an advocacy organisation, cited for its own position rather than as independent confirmation. The Daily Mirror’s account is independent of CPA’s and corroborates it on every clause both address. It also independently confirms the gazette date, describing the Bill as “published as a Gazette Supplement issued on October 6, 2026” — a date this article had established only via CPA.
The comparison that was missing: 72 hours against 24
The single most useful thing in the filing is a baseline no previous account supplied.
Under clause 20(1), a suspect must generally be produced before the nearest Magistrate within 72 hours, excluding journey periods specified in the Bill, and the Magistrate may authorise a further 24 hours of police custody for recorded reasons where investigation requires it.
The Daily Mirror then states the ordinary rule: under section 37 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, police must produce a suspect arrested without a warrant before a Magistrate within 24 hours.
So the Bill triples the ordinary period before judicial oversight, and permits up to 96 hours plus journey time. CPA’s summary — reported above as “a suspect need not be produced before a Magistrate for up to 72 hours” — omitted both the further 24-hour extension and the comparison that gives the figure meaning.
Clause 21: who orders the detention, resolved
CPA’s account had the Ministry Secretary issuing detention orders. The Daily Mirror supplies the step before it: the Inspector General of Police, or an authorised officer not below the rank of Deputy Inspector General, applies to the Secretary for the order. Each order may authorise two months, with the aggregate not exceeding one year from the initial order.
The two accounts are not in conflict — police apply, the Secretary issues — but the article above described only the second half of that mechanism.
Durations and penalties that were previously unquantified
- Clause 25. Persons already on remand may be transferred back to police custody and held in isolation two weeks at a time, for a cumulative period not exceeding six months. No duration had previously been reported.
- Clause 14 is two distinct offences. Under 14(1), printing or publishing the name or any identifying matter of a victim of a serious crime under the Act is an offence carrying, on summary trial before a Magistrate, up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both. Under 14(3), publishing material relating to court proceedings in such cases without prior court permission is a separate offence. This article had recorded only that clause 14 “restricts media reporting of court proceedings.”
- Clause 23. Beyond restricting bail to the High Court, a suspect may not be held on remand for more than one year without an indictment being preferred — after which the High Court must release the suspect on bail. The mandatory release consequence had not been reported.
- Clause 4(2) includes a fifth indicium of membership not listed above: the places a person visits, alongside dress, hand signs, tattoos and associations.
- Clause 48 is narrower than “statements by people who cannot be cross-examined”: it admits a statement recorded by a Magistrate, or recorded by a Magistrate at an identification parade, made by a person who is dead or who cannot be found, notwithstanding that they are not present at trial and have not been cross-examined.
An unconfirmed claim about who drafted it
The Daily Mirror reports that “legal representatives from the CID and the AG’s office were involved in drafting the bill”, and immediately qualifies it: “this is yet to be officially confirmed by the government.”
That hedge is the paper’s own and is retained here. The claim is unverified, but it bears directly on CPA’s objection that the Bill was drafted without public consultation — the Daily Mirror separately reports that human rights activists allege it was drafted “without public consultation or meaningful dialogue with relevant stakeholders,” corroborating CPA’s account of the process from a second direction.
Still open
The Daily Mirror’s filing does not close the principal gaps. It reports no government response, names no minister presenting the Bill, gives no date for its placement on the Order Paper, and carries no comment from the Bar Association, the Human Rights Commission or the opposition. Its description of the controversial provisions is attributed to public debate and to human rights activists generally; no named organisation other than CPA has yet gone on record.
