Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has approved a bill to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) of 1979. The official Cabinet decision calls the replacement the “Safeguarding the State from Terrorism” Bill, while the government’s December 2025 consultation draft uses the term “Protection of the State from Terrorism.”

The National People’s Power (NPP) government has not given any reason yet for the change of name of the proposed legislation. It will be published in the Gazette and then presented to Parliament.

The Cabinet-approved text has not yet been made public. The only version that can presently be examined is the 2025 December draft, but it is unlikely that the bill will be significantly different from the draft, given the extensive consultations that followed the December draft.

The 2025 December draft is an improvement over the PTA of 1979. It attempts to define terrorism and related preparatory offenses more narrowly than the PTA did. It also contains safeguards that were absent or weaker under the PTA. For example, the draft recognizes access to counsel, requires notification of detention, provides for magistrates and the Human Rights Commission to visit detention facilities, and requires a detainee held under a detention order to be produced before a magistrate every 14 days. It restricts the use of statements made in custody — an important departure from the PTA’s admission of confessions made to senior police officers. A February 2026 assessment by United Nations experts acknowledged these improvements.

However, the December 2025 draft does not curb the exceptional executive power that critics of the PTA want. Under the December draft, the defense secretary can still renew two-month detention orders for a year. When a detention order is produced, the magistrate is expected to approve it, rather than decide independently whether the evidence justifies continued custody. The president may proscribe organizations and impose curfews, while the armed forces and Coast Guard receive powers normally associated with the police.

The government has not explained why it chose “Safeguarding the State from Terrorism,” as a title for the proposed law. But a law framed around safeguarding “the state” probably looks at protecting aspects such as sovereignty, territorial integrity, government institutions, and public order.

Sri Lanka has legitimate security interests and needs counterterror laws. It fought the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for decades. At one point, the LTTE controlled about one-third of Sri Lanka’s territory.  More recently, the 2019 Easter Sunday attackers targeted civilians and hotels, killing 269 people. But the attack also challenged the state’s capacity to detect and deter transnational ideological threats.

The December draft brings all these interests together. Some of its provisions criminalize the collection or supply of broadly defined “confidential information” that may affect national security and defense. Executive proscription, curfew, and the power the police still wields reinforce the state-security character of the law.

Cabinet spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa said the bill would cover terrorism “including organized crimes.” If that formulation appears in the final text, Parliament should ask whether the law is defining a distinct offense or simply extending counterterrorism powers to difficult forms of ordinary crime.

Sri Lanka nevertheless needs a preventive counterterrorism capacity. The Penal Code can punish crime like murder after the act. But terrorist attacks must be interrupted earlier. The state must act when would-be perpetrators are financing an operation, acquiring weapons, training recruits, selecting targets, or coordinating across borders.

These needs have grown more complex since 1979, when Sri Lanka enacted its first anti-terrorism law amid the looming threat posed by the LTTE. For example, the internet allows small groups to access information and technical knowledge from like-minded individuals based abroad. Terrorist financing can move through digital assets today and is better hidden than in the past.

The December draft recognizes some of this change. It reaches preparatory conduct, financing, transnational activity, and digital communications. It provides judicial authorization for interception and compelled decryption. These focus more on disruption than after-the-fact arrest and confession.

Custody still remains the main debating point of anti-terrorism legislation in the country. Counterterrorism investigations take time, and the complexity of these operations justify more investigative time. However, prolonged custody does not automatically lead to success against terrorism.

The PTA was fully operational when suicide bombers in 2019 killed more than 260 people.  A parliamentary investigation and the presidential commission of inquiry found that officials had received specific warnings but failed to evaluate, share, and act on them. The state possessed extensive arrest and detention powers. What it lacked was institutional capacity to disrupt the attacks.

However, the 2025 December draft does not establish how intelligence agencies should share information, how competing warnings should be assessed, who is responsible for acting on them, or how intelligence should be converted into evidence that can survive trial. Those are matters of institutional design, resources and accountability as much as law.

One improvement over the 1979 law that the 2025 draft provides for is limiting the use of confessions made to the police as evidence. The question is whether the final bill creates conditions for financial, communications, and forensic evidence to replace confession-centered investigations, or merely adds safeguards around the old model.

The bill should therefore be judged by whether it is somewhat more liberal than the PTA. Once the Cabinet-approved text is gazetted, three questions will matter. Has the definition separated terrorist violence from protest, organized crime, and political advocacy? Can a court examine the basis for continued detention rather than simply record an executive decision? And does the law help institutions convert intelligence into timely disruption and prosecutable evidence?

Sri Lanka’s history shows why preventive powers are necessary. It also shows that locking people up for extended periods is not the same as prevention. A law designed to safeguard the state should strengthen the state’s ability to recognize and stop a credible threat.

The NPP government has an opportunity to move Sri Lanka away from a system that measures security through arrests and years spent in custody. The better test is whether the law helps the authorities disrupt credible threats and build cases that survive in court. A law that cannot turn intelligence into evidence will reproduce the central weakness of the PTA, regardless of how much power it gives the state.