Sri Lankan History, Polity, Constitution and Public Administration
Sri Lankan History, Polity, Constitution and Public Administration tests the constitutional timeline, the machinery of government and the administrative rules an officer actually applies.
Constitutional timeline
- Donoughmore Commission (1931): universal adult franchise and the State Council.
- Soulbury Commission: the framework for independence on 4 February 1948.
- 1972 Constitution: first republican constitution; ceremonial President, executive Prime Minister.
- 1978 Constitution: executive presidency, proportional representation, Second Republican framework.
- Thirteenth Amendment (1987): provincial councils and official status for Tamil, following the Indo-Lanka Accord.
- Seventeenth (2001) and Nineteenth (2015) created and restored the Constitutional Council and independent commissions; the Eighteenth (2010) and Twentieth (2020) diluted them; the Twenty-first (2022) restored the Council and barred dual citizens from Parliament.
Administration
The Sri Lanka Administrative Service, the Establishment Code, the Financial Regulations, procurement guidelines, the Audit Act and the Right to Information Act No. 12 of 2016. Oversight runs through the Public Accounts Committee, COPE, the Auditor General and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.
Worked example
Question: 'Which constitutional mechanism safeguards the independence of the police and elections commissions?' The answer is the Constitutional Council created by the Seventeenth Amendment, removed by the Eighteenth, restored by the Nineteenth and again by the Twenty-first, which nominates members of the independent commissions. The reasoning must name the mechanism - Council nomination rather than ministerial appointment - not merely recite an amendment number.
Traps
Confusing 1972 with 1978 on the executive presidency; muddling the Eighteenth and Nineteenth; treating a bill as law before certification; forgetting that provincial councils derive from the Thirteenth Amendment, not from the 1978 text as originally enacted.