CEYLON SINCE INDEPENDENCE -ITS ADVENT

At this moment the Ceylonese leaders urged politely but firmly that the last few restrictions to independence imposed by the Soulbury Constitution be done away with.

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The British government was receptive to these requests. It was convinced that the leaders with whom it negotiated and who were likely to hold power in Ceylon for some time to come would be friendly to British interests. A decision was taken to confer dominion status on Ceylon. The few powers reserved in the Soulbury Constitution for the imperial government were also transferred to the Ceylonese legislature. These changes were incorporated in the Ceylon Independence Act of 1947.

The constitution of independent Ceylon was modelled largely on the British constitution. It introduced the system of parliamentary government as evolved in Britain and extended to the other self-governing dominions. It was rather different from the experimental system of government by executive committees introduced by the Donoughmore Constitution of 1931. By that constitution executive and legislative functions had been vested in a single body. In the British system executive power rests in the hands of a body chosen from and responsible to the legislature, the two functions are kept separate.

The legislature of independent Ceylon was bicameral and comprised the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives was directly elected by popular vote, and the Senate was in part elected by members of the popular House and in part nominated by the governor-general. The only restrictions to the power of lawmaking were the safeguards written into the constitution against discriminatory laws against particular religious or communal groups. The governor-general occupied a position akin to that of the British monarch and exercised similar constitutional functions. He was appointed by the British sovereign on the advice of the prime minister of Ceylon. His chief constitutional function was the appointment of the prime minister, who was called upon to form a government on the basis of the electoral results as reflected in the House of Representatives.