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| Thursday, 25 March 2004 |
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Sri Lanka ratifies Prisoner Transfer Agreement with UK Sri Lanka has ratified the bilateral Agreement on the Transfer of Prisoners with the UK, which was signed in London between Minister of Foreign Affairs Tyronne Fernando and Parliamentary Under Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Mike O'Brien in February, 2003. The instruments of ratification enabling the Agreement to enter into force for Sri Lanka and the UK were exchanged between Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bernard Goonetillake and the British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka Stephen Nicholas Evans MBE, CMG, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at which senior officials of the Ministries of Foreign affairs and Internal Security and the British High Commission were present. The Sri Lanka Transfer of Offenders Act which became operative from February 1995 provides for the transfer of convicted offenders to and from Sri Lanka. The legislation gives effect, inter-alia, to the Commonwealth Scheme for Transfer of Convicted Offenders, which was adopted in New Zealand in 1990. The Act envisages the conclusion of bilateral agreements between Sri Lanka and foreign countries. The UK is the first country with which Sri Lanka has concluded a bilateral Agreement on the Transfer of Prisoners, which could serve as a model draft in negotiating similar bilateral Agreements with other countries. The rationale for the Agreement with the UK is to facilitate the successful rehabilitation of prisoners into society within their own environment. It gives foreigners who are deprived of their liberty as a result of their commission of a criminal offence in foreign territories, the opportunity to serve their sentences within their own country, a Ministry press release said. |
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