19.1 Outline of Sri Lanka’s legal environment

19.1.1 Constitutional structure

In the political history of Sri Lanka, under the “dominium” of the British Empire for centuries, various forms of constitutional documents were formulated from time to time in an attempt to structure a workable system of governance for Sri Lanka. Though Sri Lanka achieved independence on 4 February 1948, it was not until 1972 that Sri Lanka had a constitutional document of its own – the first autochthonous Constitution. In 1978, the second autochthonous Constitution (Second Republican Constitution of Sri Lanka 1978) was enacted, which is currently in force together with 19 amendments to date.1