External Affairs Minister Gamini Peiris told Parliament that the government wants to withdraw a number of provisions in the law that he deemed “redundant.” According to a government document, it has proposed to repeal 36 of the 73 regulations found in the law.

They include the banning of propaganda supportive of a terrorist cause; allowing security forces to confiscate property from people involved in terrorist activities; exempting security forces from the law in certain circumstances; banning of public rallies by a presidential order and spreading rumor; publishing details of terrorist investigations or military activity; and taking photographs of military-sensitive areas.

“We are today in a position to dispense with a vast majority of the emergency law,” Peiris said.

Lawmakers will debate the proposal for two days and vote on it Wednesday. It requires a simple majority to pass. The government has a resounding majority in Parliament and will likely carry it through.

Sri Lanka has been under emergency rule for the most part of the past 30 years and the last phase of emergency was enforced in 2005 after suspected Tamil Tiger snipers killed former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

Prime Minister Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Jayaratne said that the government plans to set up what he called a “Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission” to investigate losses and pay compensation to the victims of war.

Tamil Tiger rebels fought since 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's minority Tamils who suffered discrimination at the hands of governments controlled by majority Sinhalese.

An estimated 80,000-100,000 people were killed in the violence before government troops crushed the rebels last May.

Meanwhile, the United States Embassy and Paris-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders praised Monday's order by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to free a journalist convicted of supporting terrorism and sentenced to 20 years in prison under the emergency law.

Jeyaprakash Tissainayagam was convicted last year of creating communal disharmony through his articles after he wrote about the effects of the government's military campaign on ethnic Tamil civilians.

President Barack Obama in his World Press Freedom Day speech last year cited Tissainayagam's case as harassment of the press.