States of Emergency - Centre for Policy Alternatives

to parliamentary approval, a Proclamation of a state of emergency
operates for a period of one month, and may be further extended
by one month at a time, although it may be revoked earlier. 280
Before their repeal by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution in
1986, the original paragraphs (8) and (9) of Article 155 provided
that where a state of emergency has been in operation for a period
of ninety consecutive days, or ninety days in aggregate within a
period of six months, a resolution passed by a majority of twothirds
of members was required for a valid parliamentary
approval of the continuing state of emergency. This safeguard is no
longer available.
There was no provision for judicial oversight or review over the
declaration or anything done in good faith under a state of
emergency in Chapter XVIII, which makes Parliament the sole
oversight and control mechanism of the executive during an
emergency. However, Article 154J (2), which was introduced by
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1987), seeks to
prohibit judicial review in respect of the making of the
Proclamation. Some commentators have suggested that this was a
response by the government to the Supreme Court’s decision in
Joseph
 Perera
 v.
 Attorney
 General (1992) 281 where the Court
narrowed down the ouster clause in the PSO in respect of the
promulgation of emergency regulations, and for the Lirst time,
struck down an emergency regulation as unconstitutional. 282
280
Article 155 (5)
281
Joseph
Perera
v.
Attorney
General
(1992) 1 SLR 199 (decided in March 1987,
eight months before the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment in November
1987)
282
Radhika Coomaraswamy & Charmaine de los Reyes (2004) ‘Rule
by
Emergency:
Sri
Lanka’s
Postcolonial
Constitutional
Experience’ I.CON, Vol.2, No.2,
272 at p.287
179