Other Features of the 1978 Constitution
The 1978 Constitution introduced an electoral system based on proportional representation with the district as the constituency. The Constitution originally envisaged that the declaration of an Emergency under the Public Security Ordinance should be approved by a special two-thirds majority.
This was later amended to permit a simple majority to approve emergency rule. The President was immune from legal action while in office, a provision that has now been changed. A semi-federal framework was introduced by way of the Provincial Council system in 1987.56The Constitution also introduced the idea of a referendum. A referendum is required if the Supreme Court determines that a proposed constitutional amendment conflicts with one of the entrenched clauses in the Constitution. The President was given the power to present bills for approval to the people at a referendum, in cases where Parliament had rejected such bills. A referendum has been used only once, to extend the life of Parliament and ensure a five-sixths majority for the ruling party in 1982.
Welikala (ed) Constitutional Reform and Crisis in Sri Lanka (Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2019) 24-27.
52 See Nalika Kumudini v O.I.C. Hungama Police [1997] 3 Sri L R 331 and Mohamed Faiz v AttorneyGeneral [1995] 1 Sri L R 372, for illustrative examples of the types of remedies the Court has provided in fundamental rights cases.
53 Dr Shirani Bandaranayake v Chamal Rajapakse, Speaker of Parliament, C.A (Writ) Application No 411/2012, CA Minutes of 7 Jan 2013.
54 Attorney General v Shirani Bandaranayake, SC Appeal No 67 of 2013, SC Minutes of 21 Feb 2014.
55 Michaela Hailbronner, ‘Transformative Constitutionalism: Not Only in the Global South’ (2017) 65 American Journal of Comparative Law 527, 565.
56 Through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution (1987) and the Provincial Councils Act of 1987.
VI.