Thesawalamai Law

FAMELY MATTERS OF
1) Malabar Tamils /Jaffna
Tamils Kandiyan Law

2) Kandiyan Sinhalese
Muslim Law
3) followers of the Islamic
religion

ALL OTHER
MATTERS

All the matters of Persons who

are not governed by special Common Law
laws: RDL/EL
Low country Sinhalese
Low country Tamils

RDL
Land law, family law, law of contract, general insurance

EL
Law of partnerships, law of agency, life, fire and marine insurance,
banking law

Legal systems of Sri Lanka.

Personal Laws/ Special Laws

There are three kinds of personal laws in Sri Lanka.

These personal laws apply to determine the family matters (such as
marriage, divorce, legitimacy, inheritance and succession, rights of
husband and wife) of that particular groups of persons.

1) Thesawalamai Law
This law applies to Malabar Tamils inhabitant of Jaffna province.

2) Kandiyan Law

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This law applies to Kandiyan Sinhalese. They are derived from Sinhalese
who were lived in Kandiyan region before 1815.

3) Muslim Law
This law applies to followers of the Islamic religion.

Common-Law

Common law means the law which is applied to most of the people in a
country. Thus in Sri Lanka, Roman-Dutch law is treated as its common
law.

Special laws only apply to family matters of those particular groups of

persons. However, all the other matters of that persons are determined by
Roman-Dutch law.

The persons who are not governed by special laws such as low country
Sinhalese and Tamils who are not inhabitant of Jaffna Province, their all
the matters are determined by Roman-Dutch law.

However, if the Roman-Dutch law is silent English law is applied to fill

the law. Therefore in Sri Lanka, a combination of Roman-Dutch law and
English law is used as the common law.

Court system of Sri Lanka

Name of the court Jurisdiction
1) Magistrates Court o Jurisdiction for all minor
offences. (fine is less than
Rs.200,000/- or
imprisonment is less than
02 years )
o Civil matters value not
exceeding Rs.1500/-

2) District Court o Jurisdiction for all civil

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3) High courts
3:1 Provincial High Court
3:2 Civil Appellate High Court
3:3 Commercial High Court
4) Court of Appeal
5) Supreme Court
matters other than the
matters referred to
Commercial High Court.
(e.g. Land cases, divorce cases, recovery
of damages or debts)
o All grave offences
o Exercises an appellate jurisdiction
for orders of the Magistrates
courts.
Exercises an appellate jurisdiction for
orders of the District courts.
o Civil cases derived from
commercial transactions within
Western Province value exceeding
Rs.20 millions.
o Disputes under Intellectual
property Act.
o Disputes under Intellectual
property Act.
o Writ jurisdiction
(E.g. Prohibition – an order to prevent an
act of the public officer.
Habeas corpus- an order to produce a
person who is in illegal detention.
Mandamus – an order to persuade to do
a particular act.)
o Exercises an appellate jurisdiction
for orders of the provincial high
court courts with regard to grave
offences.
o Jurisdiction for petitions of
General Elections.
o Jurisdiction for interpretation of
Constitution of Sri Lanka.
o Jurisdiction for petitions of
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 fundamental rights.
(E.g. Right of expression, right against
discrimination, right against arbitrary
detention and imprisonment.)

o Exercises final appellate

jurisdiction for orders of all
courts.
o jurisdiction for petitions of
presidential elections.
o the jurisdiction in respect of
breach of parliamentary
privileges.
o consultative jurisdiction on
matters referred by His
Excellency the President

SC
Higher courts.
Functioning only in CA
Colombo

HC-- PHC / CAHC/ CHC

DC

MC

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 LAW

CRIMINAL LAW CIVIL

(CRIMES/ OFFENCES) LAW

DC or
CHC
MINOR (MC) GRAVE
(JUDGEMENT) PHC