House of Representatives (Ceylon)
The House of Representatives ( Tamil இலங்கை பிரதிநிதிகள் சபை ) was the lower house of the parliament of the then Dominion of Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka ), which was founded in 1947 by the Soulbury Constitution . The house was housed in the old building of the State Council of Ceylon on Galle Face Green in Colombo . The first constitution of the Republic of Sri Lanka, which came into force on May 22, 1972, replaced the House of Representatives together with the Parliament of Ceylon with the unicameral system of the National State Assembly .
Members
The House of Commons met for the first time on October 14, 1947. Originally it consisted of 101 members, 95 of whom were elected by electors from 89 electoral districts and six were appointed by the Governor-General of Ceylon , on the direction of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka . The members were considered " Members of Parliament ". The six appointed members were representatives of important interest groups that were not or inadequately represented in parliament; they usually belonged to the European or Burgher grouping and in some cases also to the Sri Lankan Tamils (Indian Tamils) and Muslim Moors or Sri Lankan Malays (Yes Minissu). In a few cases, individual caste groups from the Sinhalese population and the Tamil population were also represented in parliament as appointed members.
The fourth amendment to the Soulbury Constitution increased the membership to 157 (151 elected from the 145 electoral districts and six nominated).
Electoral districts
The original 89 electoral districts consisted of 84 districts with one, four districts with two representatives (Ambalangoda-Balapitiya, Badulla, Balangoda and Kadugannawa) and one district with three representatives ( Colombo Central Electoral District ). As of March 1960, there were 145 electoral districts with 140 districts with one, four with two (Akurana, Batticaloa Electoral District (1947-1989), Colombo South Electoral District and Mutur Electoral District) and one with three representatives (Colombo Central Electoral District).
speaker
- Alfred Francis Molamure (1947-51)
- Albert F. Peries (1951–56)
- HS Ismail (1956–59)
- TB Subasinghe (1960)
- RS Pelpola (1960-64)
- Hugh Fernando (1964)
- Albert F. Peries (1965-67)
- Shirley Corea (1967-70)
- Stanley Tillekeratne (1970-72)
Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees
- RA de Mel (1947-48)
- HW Amarasuriya (1948)
- Albert F. Peries (1948–51)
- HS Ismail (1951–56)
- Piyasena Tennakoon (1956–58)
- RS Pelpola (1958-60)
- Hugh Fernando (1960-64)
- DA Rajapaksa (1964)
- Shirley Corea (1965-67)
- Razik Fareed (1967-68)
- Murugesu Sivasithamparam (1968-70)
- IA Cader (1970-72)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wilson, A. Jeyaratnam: Politics in Sri Lanka, the Republic of Ceylon: A Study in the Making of a New Nation . Springer, 2016, ISBN 9781349015443 , p. 206.
literature
- CEYLON (CONSTITUTION) ORDER IN COUNCIL . LawNet, Government of Sri Lanka. Archived from the original on July 16, 2010.
- CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS SINCE INDEPENDENCE . The Official Website of the Government of Sri Lanka.
- KT Rajasingham: Chapter 11: On the threshold of freedom . In: SRI LANKA: THE UNTOLD STORY .
- First election on party basis . In: Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) March 4, 2007.