Sri Lanka · Constitution
Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
The second republican constitution, adopted in 1978, creating an executive presidency and proportional representation, and amended 22 times. Chapter III guarantees fundamental rights enforceable only against state action and only by petition to the Supreme Court within one month. The Nineteenth Amendment of 2015 curtailed presidential power and strengthened independent commissions; the Twentieth of 2020 reversed much of that; the Twenty-First of 2022, passed after mass protests, restored the Constitutional Council and re-limited presidential appointment powers.
The constitutional text
The second republican constitution, adopted in 1978, creating an executive presidency and proportional representation, and amended 22 times. Chapter III guarantees fundamental rights enforceable only against state action and only by petition to the Supreme Court within one month. The Nineteenth Amendment of 2015 curtailed presidential power and strengthened independent commissions; the Twentieth of 2020 reversed much of that; the Twenty-First of 2022, passed after mass protests, restored the Constitutional Council and re-limited presidential appointment powers.
Separation of powers
Unitary with a devolved provincial layer created by the Thirteenth Amendment of 1987, which established nine provincial councils with legislative competence over a devolved list. Devolution has been contested and uneven; provincial councils have operated without elections since 2018, and the Northern and Eastern provinces' status was central to the conflict that ended in 2009.
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