Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-02-21

Amendment to the Industrial Disputes Act for extending the Right of Representation and Appearance on behalf of parties before the Labour Tribunals

- The responsibility of the Labour Tribunals established under the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act is to settle industrial disputes on a speedy and inexpensive machinery according to the accepted principles of justice and equity. Although, the task expected of these were to function as Tribunals accessible to the ordinary worker communities for them to have services with ease, it has now been found that an injustice have been caused to the ordinary workers as a result of some Labour Tribunal Presidents denying non lawyer representatives to appear before them on behalf of the parties, giving a strained interpretation to the law that persons who are non lawyers are disallowed to represent the parties before the Labour Tribunals. As such, the joint proposal made by Hon. W.D.J. Seneviratne, the Minister of Labour and Trade Union Relations and Hon.(Dr.) Wijayadasa Rajapaksa, the Minister of Justice, to delete the provisions found in the Act preventing a lawyer to appear during an inquiry conducted before the Commissioner of Labour or an authorized officer and to instruct the Legal Draftsman, to draft amendments vesting of the authority now given to the Commissioner of Labour to the Presidents of Labour Tribunals as well, to take steps to enforce their orders against the employers when they do not carry out an order made by a Labour Tribunal, was approved by the Cabinet.