Chapter 1: The People, The State and Sovereignty

The sovereignty of the People shall be given effect through representative, plural, participatory, consociational and deliberative methods.

The sovereignty of the People is constituted of the Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils, Muslims, Indian Tamils, Malays, Burghers and all other communities of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is a free, sovereign and independent Republic. The sovereignty of the People of the Republic takes a unitary form. The State, which takes this unitary form, consists of the institutions of the Centre and of the Provinces prescribed by the Constitution.

The following principles constitute the Basic Structure of the Constitution of the Republic. These principles are inherent to the social compact of the People of Sri Lanka and are declared to be unamendable and eternal. No amendment, repeal or replacement of this Constitution shall be valid if it violates, diminishes or abolishes the essence of these pillars.

1. Sovereignty of the People: including the franchise and the right to exercise legislative, executive and judicial power through democratically elected representatives and independent institutions.

2. Supremacy of the Constitution: the principle that all laws and acts of the State derive their validity from this Constitution, and the power of judicial review to strike down enactments inconsistent with it.

3. Pre-enactment and Post-enactment Review: the Constitutional Court must be able to strike down a law that violates the Basic Structure, even after it has been enacted.

4. Unitary Character: to satisfy the majority opinion, the "indivisible and unitary State" may be declared a basic feature that can never be altered by any amendment.

5. Subsidiarity and Devolution: the fundamental principle of power-sharing between the Centre and the Provinces to guarantee local self-government within the unitary State.

6. Power-sharing as a Security Feature: power-sharing (devolution) must be regarded not as a "concession" granted to minorities, but as a security feature of the unitary State. If minorities feel that the Centre cannot lawfully "take back" their local self-government, the secessionist impulse disappears.

7. Devolution (Subsidiarity): ensuring that the principle of devolution (the Thirteenth Amendment or its successor) cannot be abolished by a simple majoritarian will.

8. Secular and Pluralist Character: the State's commitment to the equal dignity of all citizens and equal protection for all religions, while safeguarding the foremost place of Buddhism (in terms of Article 9), and the rejection of any form of religious or ethnic domination.

9. Secular/Pluralist Character: making the equal dignity of all citizens an unamendable basic feature while safeguarding the "foremost place" of Buddhism (Article 9).

10. Separation of Powers: the essential checks and balances among the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.

11. Rule of Law and Independence of the Judiciary: ensuring that no leader is above the law, and protecting human dignity through the rights to equality, freedom and development.

Any amendment determined to violate the Constitution shall be void ab initio, of no force and without legal effect.

The Constitutional Court shall have exclusive and final jurisdiction to determine whether a proposed constitutional amendment violates the Basic Structure.

Sri Lanka is constituted through the sovereignty of the People, and the Republic of Sri Lanka is founded upon the sovereignty of the People. Sovereignty is inalienable. Sovereignty includes the powers of government, judicial power, fundamental rights and the franchise.

Sovereignty shall be exercised in the following manner:

The legislative power of the People shall be exercised directly by the People at a Referendum, and, upon constitutional provision, by Parliament and by the Provincial legislatures.

The executive power of the People, including the defence of the Republic, shall be exercised by the President, by the Cabinet of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister, and by the Provincial executives.

The judicial power of the People shall be exercised by courts and tribunals created and established by, or recognized under, the Constitution founded upon the sovereignty of the People, or created and established by any other law; by Parliament in the determination of the privileges of Parliament; and by other institutions established by law.

The human rights declared and recognized by the Constitution shall be respected, secured and advanced by all organs of government. Further, save for the right to freedom of conscience, the right to life, the right to freedom from cruel and degrading treatment and from torture, and the right to freedom from modern slavery, no other human right shall be abridged, restricted or denied, except in the manner and to the extent hereinafter provided.

Every citizen who has attained the age of eighteen years and who, being qualified to be an elector as hereinafter provided, has their name entered in the register of electors, shall be entitled to exercise the franchise at the election of the President of the Republic, at elections of Members of Parliament, at every Referendum, and at Provincial and Local Government elections, on the basis of electorates delimited by the Delimitation Commission upon due criteria provided by the Constitution.

The Republic recognizes all the religious and cultural foundations of its history. It recognizes, as a foremost responsibility of the Republic, the protection of Buddhism and the safeguarding of the Buddha Sasana. The secular character of the Republic is defined by its equal respect for the religions professed by the People and recognized by the Constitution, and affirms that the State stands as the neutral guarantor of the dignity of every citizen, whatever their path towards their spiritual goals.