THE 13th AMENDMENT (SRI LANKA)

Sept. 6, 2020

After the Rajapaksas’ win in the November 2019 presidential polls and the August 2020 general election, the spotlight has fallen on the 13th Amendment (in Sri Lanka’s Constitution) passed in 1987, which mandates a measure of power devolution to the provincial councils established to govern the island’s nine provinces.

About:

The 13th Amendment is an outcome of the Indo-Lanka Accord of July 1987, signed by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President J.R. Jayawardene.
It was an attempt to resolve Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict that had aggravated into a full-fledged civil war, between the armed forces and the LTTE, which led the struggle for Tamils’ self-determination and sought a separate state. Till date, the 13th Amendment represents the only constitutional provision on the settlement of the long-pending Tamil question.
It led to the creation of Provincial Councils, assured a power sharing arrangement to enable all nine provinces in the country, including Sinhala majority areas, to self-govern.
Subjects such as education, health, agriculture, housing, land and police are devolved to the provincial administrations, but because of restrictions on financial powers and overriding powers given to the President, the provincial administrations have not made much headway.
In particular, the provisions relating to police and land have never been implemented.
Initially, the north and eastern provinces were merged and had a North-Eastern Provincial Council, but the two were de-merged in 2007 following a Supreme Court verdict.