Minister compromises on warnings

Sri Lanka’s Attorney General on Wednesday told the Court of Appeal that the Minister of Health was agreeable to reduce the size of the pictorial warnings required on tobacco-product packs to 70 per cent of the display areas, according to a story by Chitra Weerarathne for The Island.

He said warnings occupying 80 per cent of the display areas had been the idea of the National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol.

The Ceylon Tobacco Company had filed a Writ Application against a recent gazette notification published by the Minister of Health making it mandatory for pictorial warnings to cover 80 per cent of the display areas.

The petitioner asked the Court to reduce the size of the pictorial warnings ‘reasonably’.