The Eastminster Viceroy and the Republican Monarch: The Sri Lankan Head of State and the 2018 Constitutional Crisis in Historical Context

Abstract

This chapter discusses the 2018 constitutional crisis in Sri Lanka, and its implications for the future of constitutional democracy, when it is understood against the historical trajectory of Sri Lanka’s post-colonial political development. The office of Head of State is examined in the context of its relationship to the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and its relationship to Parliament. In both its dominion and republican incarnations, the horizontal political accountability of the Sri Lankan Head of State has depended on the Cabinet and Parliament. The way Governor General and President understood these two accountability relationships, and so stretched, and, on occasion, broke them, is thus central to explaining the office of the Sri Lankan Head of State. The 2018 crisis highlighted three features of the system. The first is that despite recent reforms to curtail the powers of the presidency, older patterns of political behaviour had survived. Nevertheless, secondly, the strengthening of the constitutional position of the Prime Minister and Parliament vis-à-vis the President did have an effect in controlling backsliding, and in this respect, there was a revival of Westminster traditions of parliamentary democracy, in particular the twin principles of confidence and responsibility. Finally, the fundamental tension between these authoritarian and democratic tendencies of the systemic culture was reflected in the breakdown of the semi-presidential executive in the aftermath of the 2018 crisis, and was revealed with tragic consequences in the governmental failures that led to the Easter Sunday 2019 terror attacks.