Constitutional Law: The Delegation of Federal Legislative Power to Executive or Administrative Agencies

G. A. S.

doi:10.2307/1281406

Constitutional Law: The Delegation of Federal Legislative Power to Executive or Administrative Agencies

Michigan Law Review ◽

10.2307/1281406 ◽

1933 ◽

Vol 31 (6) ◽

pp. 786

Author(s):

G. A. S.

Keyword(s):

Constitutional Law ◽

Legislative Power ◽

Administrative Agencies

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Uncertain sovereignty: Ceylon as a Dominion 1948–1972

International Journal of Constitutional Law ◽

10.1093/icon/moz079 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 1258-1282

Author(s):

Rehan Abeyratne

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Constitutional Law ◽

Fundamental Rights ◽

Judicial Power ◽

Privy Council ◽

Minority Communities ◽

Cautious Approach ◽

Legislative Power ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

The Subject

Abstract This article, a contribution to a symposium on dominion constitutionalism, looks at sovereignty in Ceylon’s Dominion period (1948–1972). While the Ceylon Constitution has been the subject of in-depth historical and sociopolitical study, it has received less attention from legal scholars. This article hopes to fill that gap. It analyzes Ceylon Supreme Court and Privy Council judgments from this era on both rights-based and structural questions of constitutional law. In each area, sovereignty-related concerns influenced the judicial approach and case outcomes. On fundamental rights, both the Supreme Court and the Privy Council adopted a cautious approach, declining to invalidate legislation that had discriminatory effects on minority communities. This reluctance to entrench fundamental rights resulted, at least in part, from judges’ undue deference to the Ceylon Parliament, which was wrongly looked upon like its all-powerful British progenitor. On constitutional structure, the Ceylon Supreme Court deferred to Parliament even when legislation encroached into the judicial realm. The Privy Council, though, was not so passive. It upheld a separate, inviolable judicial power that Parliament could not legislate away. But by asserting itself as a check on legislative power, the Council—as a foreign judicial body intervening in Ceylonese affairs—stoked concerns that Ceylon was less than fully sovereign, which ultimately ended Dominion status.

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