Sri Lankan governance has struggled with identifying national priorities. One sector which had been long neglected is the Judiciary and law enforcement of the island nation. This, despite high levels of corruption, bribery and record-low public trust in the state and justice. 

The Sri Lankan Judiciary has over the years been poorly allocated with funds. However, this is not an isolated trend, crucial sectors such as foreign policy/diplomacy, health, education and research remain low-funded sectors. This has resulted in Sri Lanka’s justice mechanisms being outdated, slow and inefficient. Successive governments have failed to address this issue, resulting in the public facing insurmountable odds to access the fundamental needs they are entitled to. Timely access to justice is a basic necessity in a democracy.

In 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the establishment of a special unit under the Ministry of Justice to implement a Judicial Reform Programme, due to the consequences following delays in the current judicial process. The programme is to be implemented within a period of 3 years with the assistance of legal experts. Delays in the judicial process in Sri Lanka have severely affected the people involved as well as the country’s economy. In 2016, the National Law Committee presented a report on the various issues that cause delays in cases, the adverse consequences that result from these issues and the proposed solutions. By the end of 2019, there were 766,784 pending cases in the courts of the country and urgent action needed to be taken in this regard. Therefore, the Judicial Reform Programme is considered as a step to improve infrastructure development, legal reforms, judicial automation and capacity building – to address the issues that cause delays in cases.

While there have been a number of judicial reforms, and improvement in the time spent chasing justice, still, many legal issues persist. Even today, the lack of basic facilities causes significant delays in the judicial process. There is a huge case load which the different courts and legal mechanisms have to address, with some cases and related legal processes lasting three or four decades. Going by recent examples, cases related to child abuse or rape, are alleged often, to be dragged on for at least a decade. The same is true for criminal cases. Murder or assault cases have been heard for nearly two and half decades. The number of property related cases in the Sri Lankan judicial system, is astronomical. As a result, justice is consistently denied to victims.

A recent Justice Ministry Performance Report presented, pointed to an astounding 1 million cases remaining unresolved in Courts. This backlog highlights a significant weakness in the national perception of justice, and also reflects on the economic and international standing of the island. When will the Government and Judiciary move to begin to reduce the case load which often clogs up District and Appeals Courts with routine procedural hearings. The findings highlight that the volume of unresolved cases have only been reduced by a small percentage, which is indicative of the ineffectiveness of the measures taken thus far and lack of seriousness of the Ministry of Justice and the Government to solve the issue.

The incremental progress is overshadowed by the broader reality that Sri Lanka’s justice system is overburdened and under-resourced. 

One way the caseload and the slow progress of court proceedings can be reduced is to introduce significant automation to the courts system, along with digitised documentation and evidence presentation, storage and record keeping. While Sri Lanka’s economic situation may not be ideal to proceed with a large-scale digitisation and automation of the national judicial infrastructure, Sri Lanka should strive to do so, with the support from entities such as the United Nations and other progressive donors. The delays that plague the system itself cost the island a significant amount, as expediting such judicial reforms is prudent. Another issue, which has been highlighted recently is the inadequacy of the number of judges in Sri Lanka, which is lower than many other similar nations. 

It is important that the current and future Governments take judicial reforms seriously – it is central to effective governance.