Sri Lanka Pilots AI-Assisted Legislative Drafting for Its Virtual Asset Bill — and Draws an Immediate Governance Warning

On 21 August 2026 Sri Lanka's Ministry of Digital Economy and GovTech Sri Lanka convened a "Better Tools for Better Lawmaking" workshop at the Legal Draftsman's Department, chaired by Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga Weeraratne, to launch a pilot testing AI-assisted drafting on the proposed Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill.
Senior officials — including Presidential Senior Adviser on Digital Economy Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, Ministry Secretary Waruna Sri Dhanapala and Legal Draftsman Dilrukshi Samaraweera — demonstrated AI tools capable of drafting, validating and producing legislative text in Sinhala, Tamil and English, and discussed data readiness and safeguards for the pilot.
The workshop itself is the only reported milestone so far: officials describe next steps as moving toward implementation of the pilot, with no independent evaluation of drafting accuracy yet published.
The same week, the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a Sri Lankan civil-society think tank, publicly warned that "the central question is not whether AI can improve drafting efficiency but whether the institutional environment ... is capable of ensuring its responsible, transparent, and accountable use," flagging risks of AI-generated errors and bias, "automation washing" that obscures who is accountable for outcomes, and a lack of public disclosure about training data and evaluation criteria; CPA called for mandatory human review, public disclosure, independent bias/accuracy audits and clear accountability rules before the pilot proceeds.

Read the full analysis: https://www.lankanewspapers.com/2026/08/22/sri-lanka-explores-ai-powered-legislative-drafting-in-landmark-workshop