From dominion to republican status: dilemmas of constitution making in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This article examines the main features of Sri Lanka's post-war constitutional development from the independence constitution of 1946 that introduced Dominion self-governing status through the First and Second Republican Constitutions of 1972 and 1978. During this transition, executive power fluctuated between a Westminster style Parliamentary Constitution (1946, 1972) and a Presidential type of Constitution (1978) with a centralised executive directly elected by the people. The general issues surrounding the current debate on constitutional reform in recent years have centred on the abolition of the executive Presidency, an overhaul of the electoral system and the available options for power sharing with the ethnic minorities. The system of proportional representation precludes any political party from either forming a stable government or from securing the super majoritarian requirement of two-thirds of the members of Parliament for amending the constitution. This predicament necessitates the invoking of an extra legal measure of a Constituent Assembly process to adopt an altogether new constitution to settle fundamental issues such as the structure of the state and the mode of electoral representation. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.