Constitutional Development
At independence in 1948, Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, was a Commonwealth realm, with the monarch represented by the Governor General. The Parliament was bicameral, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. In 1971, the Senate was abolished, and the following year, Ceylon was renamed Sri Lanka, and became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with the last Governor General becoming the first President of Sri Lanka. Under the first republican Constitution, the unicameral legislature was known as the National State Assembly.
In 1978, a new Constitution was adopted, which provided for an executive President, and the legislature was renamed Parliament.
Read more about this topic: Politics Of Sri Lanka
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“The Cairo conference ... is about a complicated web of education and employment, consumption and poverty, development and health care. It is also about whether governments will follow where women have so clearly led them, toward safe, simple and reliable choices in family planning. While Cairo crackles with conflict, in the homes of the world the orthodoxies have been duly heard, and roundly ignored.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)