Legislature
The New Parliament was inaugurated on 29 April 1982. It was built once a massive lake was formed by dredging the marshlands around the Diyawanna Oya. The new parliamentary buildings were built on Duwa, a 50,000 square metre (12 acre) island in the centre of the lake. The island (off Baddegana Road, Pita Kotte) had been used as a recreation and brawling spot for Portuguese soldiers in the last days of the Kotte era, alcohol being banned from the Royal City. It had belonged to E.W. Perera and had housed a chicken farm prior to being vested in the state. On 29 April 1982, the new parliamentary complex was declared open by the former president J.R. Jayawardene.
The process of relocating government institutions from the former capital of Colombo is still in progress.
Read more about this topic: Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte
Famous quotes containing the word legislature:
“It seemed monstrous to our intolerant youth that “poor white folksy” men should have an equal right with gentlemen, born and bred, in deciding who should represent the county in the Legislature and the district in Congress.”
—Marion Harland (1830–1922)
“An ... important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)