Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister said the newly announced Office of Missing Persons will have a “humanitarian mandate”, following controversy over the lack of prosecutorial power the office will hold.
Speaking at the International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Slovenia earlier this week, Mangala Samaraweera said the “main objective” of the bill was “ascertaining the fate of the missing, irrespective of when and where they went missing and in what location, and seek to provide answers to their family members and loved ones”.
The controversial bill has been criticised by relatives of the missing and disappeared, for being rushed through parliament without proper consultation with the victims. Sri Lankan officials, including the prime minster, have also reassured Sri Lankan troops that no prosecutions for human rights abuses will occur as a result of the bill. 
Mr Samaraweera though went on to state his government’s commitments to advancing human rights on the island.
“As you are all aware, the Government co-sponsored the Resolution titled ‘Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka’ at the UN Human Rights Council in September last year, out of our own firm conviction that Sri Lanka must come to terms with the past in order to forge ahead and secure the future that the people of our country truly deserve,” he said.
Members of the government though have rallied against full implementation of the resolution, with Sri Lanka’s president in particular repeatedly declaring that foreign judges would not be allowed to participate in an accountability mechanism – a key tenet of the resolution.
The foreign minister called for his government to be granted more time to advance human rights on the island, stating that “reconciliation does not happen at once”. “It is not an end that can be reached where no further work is required; and it is certainly not a box that can be ticked as a task completed and achieved,” he said. 
“For some, the pace at which we are making progress appears too slow; and for others, too fast. I would say that while victims and the general public as well as some in the international community may be impatient, after so many years of conflict, we cannot take risks that will make us lose everything that we have gained in the last one-and-a-half years. So we move with caution. Perhaps our approach could be described as what the Romans called festina lente - making haste slowly.”
See the full text of his address here.