A final money judgment from a court of one of the 53 Commonwealth countries in the 2025 Order can be registered in the District Court of Colombo under Act No. 49 of 2024 and enforced as if the District Court had given it. The application is summary, on affidavits, must be brought within ten years, and is meant to be over in six months.
For most of a century the question asked from London, Sydney or Singapore, can our judgment be enforced in Sri Lanka, had an answer that satisfied nobody: in principle, slowly. The machinery has now actually changed, and the change is recent enough that much of what is published abroad has not caught up with it.
The Act, and the Order that switched it on
The Reciprocal Recognition, Registration and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act No. 49 of 2024 replaced the colonial-era reciprocal enforcement regime with one designed to be used. It does not apply of its own force to any country. Under section 2, the Minister must be satisfied that substantial reciprocity of treatment is assured for Sri Lankan judgments in the foreign country, and must extend the Act to that country's courts by Order published in the Gazette, with the Order then placed before Parliament for approval within three months.
That machinery has been used. Two Orders were signed at Colombo on 26 March 2025 and published in Gazette Extraordinary No. 2429/51 of 28 March 2025: one appointing 26 March 2025 as the date the Act came into operation, and one extending Part I to the judgments of the courts of the 53 countries in its Schedule. The list is, in substance, the Commonwealth: Australia is item 27, Singapore item 44, the United Kingdom item 51, with India, Canada and the rest alongside. For a creditor in any scheduled country, the question is no longer whether there is a route, but whether the particular judgment qualifies for it.
Which judgments qualify
The Act applies under section 3 only to a judgment that is final and conclusive between the parties, from a court of a scheduled country, and it then requires at least one connecting factor from a generous list: that the judgment-debtor or judgment-creditor was resident in the country of the original court when they became party to the proceedings, that the debtor had a place of business or maintained a branch or agency there, that the debtor submitted or agreed to submit to the original court's jurisdiction, that property to which the judgment relates was situated there or in Sri Lanka, or that the applicant derives a right or entitlement under the judgment. In the ordinary commercial case, where the defendant traded in the country that gave judgment or agreed to its courts, at least one limb is satisfied without strain.
The Act also carries a family limb: a foreign decree of divorce, annulment or separation may be recognised, where the marriage was registered under the Marriage Registration Ordinance and a party was domiciled in or had a real connection with the country of the decree. That has quietly transformed the position of Sri Lankan couples who divorced abroad, though this article is concerned with the money side.
The procedure: summary, on paper, and timed
The application is made to the District Court of Colombo, the registering court designated by the Act, within ten years from the date of the final judgment, accompanied by a certificate from the relevant authority of the original court authenticating the judgment, and it proceeds by way of summary procedure under Chapter XXIV of the Civil Procedure Code. The Act does allow the court to entertain a later application where the delay is validly explained, but that is an indulgence to be argued for, not a schedule to plan around. The court is directed to decide the matter on petition, objections, affidavits and documents, without oral evidence, and to conclude the proceedings within six months of the application.
Those three design choices, a paper record, a summary chapter, and a statutory clock, are what separate this Act from the regime it replaced. Under section 5, once the court is prima facie satisfied that the judgment is one to which the Act applies, that the applicant derives a right under it, and that the application is in time, it registers the judgment, which then has the same force and effect, and the same control over execution, as a judgment originally given in the registering court. If part of the judgment has already been satisfied, registration bites only on the unsatisfied balance.
Execution then proceeds as for any Sri Lankan judgment, against whatever the debtor has here: land, shares, receivables, or a vessel, and where the debtor's assets float, the admiralty route described in arresting a ship in Sri Lanka may reach what ordinary execution cannot.
Where the debtor fights back
Registration is not the end of the argument; it moves the argument. The registering court may set registration aside, on the debtor's application or its own motion, on five grounds: that registration contravened section 5, that the debtor was not given notice, or sufficient notice, of the original proceedings in accordance with the law of the original country, that the judgment was obtained by fraud, that the applicant in fact derived no right under the judgment, or that the judgment has been reversed or set aside on appeal in the original country. The court may allow evidence on a set-aside application, so a debtor with a genuine notice or fraud point gets a hearing rather than a rubber stamp.
For the creditor, the practical lesson is to prove service and finality properly the first time: the affidavit exhibiting the original court's certificate, the service record and the appeal position is the whole case, and a gap in it is an invitation.
The trap in section 14: the route is exclusive
One provision deserves more attention than it has had. Once an Order under section 2 is in force for a country, a judgment which may be registered under the Act is not enforceable otherwise. The old fallback of suing afresh in Sri Lanka on the foreign judgment as a debt is closed for scheduled-country judgments that qualify for registration. A creditor who lets the ten-year window pass, or who starts down the common-law road out of habit, is not preserving an alternative: for a registrable judgment, the Act's route is the route.
Judgments from countries outside the Order, the United States and the Gulf states chief among them, are unaffected: they are enforced the way foreign judgments always were here, which is described in enforcing a foreign judgment in Sri Lanka.
Practical points for instructing from abroad
- Confirm the Schedule first. It lists countries, not courts, so the threshold questions are whether the judgment is from a court of a listed country and whether any later Order has varied the list, and both are answered from the Gazette, not from a summary.
- Assemble the original court's paperwork early: the authenticating certificate, the judgment, proof of service, and evidence that no appeal is pending or that appeals are exhausted. The six-month clock only helps a creditor whose papers are complete on day one.
- Watch the ten-year window, and remember section 14: for a registrable judgment the common-law action is closed, and a late application survives only if the court accepts the explanation for the delay.
- Identify the assets before registering. Registration is a means of execution, and the sequence that works is asset search first, registration second, execution without a pause between.
- Where the debtor also has claims against the creditor, take advice before registering: registration opens a Sri Lankan forum, and openings work in both directions.
The mechanics of engaging Colombo counsel, executing the proxy and moving money for fees from abroad are set out in instructing Sri Lankan counsel from abroad.
