• Excise and copyright offences removed
• References to tattoos, body marks, prior court approval for reporting deleted   
• Changes to DOs issuance to be decided later   

The Attorney General (AG) has informed the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday (9) that amendments are to be introduced to the proposed Prevention of Organised Crimes Bill, which has been presented to Parliament by the Government. The amendments are expected to be presented at the Committee Stage of Parliament, and a document containing the proposed amendments was also submitted to the SC. 

The AG has informed that it has been proposed to remove all offences relating to the Excise Ordinance included in the Bill. President’s Counsel and Solicitor General Viraj Dayaratne, appearing on behalf of the AG, also stated that offences relating to copyright under intellectual property violations have been removed from the Bill. He further informed that amendments concerning the issuance of detention orders (DOs) would be considered at a later stage. The AG has informed that provisions relating to tattoos and body marks will be removed through amendments to the Legislation. The AG further informed that a clause requiring prior court approval to publish information relating to cases involving serious crimes would also be withdrawn. The AG informed that the provision permitting a person to be detained for up to 72 hours will be amended to reduce the detention period to 48 hours.

These submissions were made when the petitions filed challenging the Constitutionality of certain provisions of the Bill were taken up before the SC yesterday. The SC commenced hearing the petitions filed challenging certain provisions of the Bill, on the grounds that they are inconsistent with the Constitution, yesterday. The hearing is conducted before a three-Judge bench comprising Chief Justice Preethi Padman Surasena and Justices Achala Wengappuli and Sampath B Abayakoon. When the petitions were taken up previously, the SC had directed the petitioners to submit any proposed amendments to the Bill through written submissions. Accordingly, the attorneys representing the petitioners submitted their written submissions to the SC on 5 November. A total of 26 petitions have been filed before the SC challenging the Bill. The SC has concluded its consideration of the petitions and announced that its confidential Determination on the Constitutionality of the Bill will be communicated to the Speaker of the House.