Devolution And The Concept Of Concurrency: Abolition Or Reform?

May 19, 2012By Asanga Welikala -

Asanga Welikala

Among proponents of devolution as a means of power-sharing in Sri Lanka, one of the key bones of contention about the Thirteenth Amendment has been the Concurrent List. This is the list of competences, or ‘subjects’ as they are called in the constitution, over which powers are shared between the central government and the Provincial Councils. This list is part of the broader distribution of powers and functions that are arranged in three lists in the Thirteenth Amendment, the other two being the Reserved List and the Provincial Council List. This tripartite arrangement was no doubt influenced by the Indian constitution, which was the sole comparative referent during the drafting of the scheme of devolution in 1987. The significant difference of course was that devolution in Sri Lanka was intended to function within the hierarchy of norms and institutions dictated by the foundational constitutional concept of the Sri Lankan republic, the unitary state, whereas the Indian system operates according to a federal logic./ Read More