and cities, respectively, while the pradeshiya sabhas administer demarcated clusters of villages (Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, 1987). The country has been able to maintain its democratic traditions despite periods of political unrest, the insurrections of 1971, 1987–1989 and a three decade-long civil conflict, which was successfully settled in 2009. Sri Lanka’s judiciary consists of a supreme court – the highest and final superior court, a court of appeal, high courts and a number of subordinate magistrate courts. Roman Dutch law is called the “common law” of the country. Criminal law is based predominantly on British law. The civil procedure code, which governs civil matters, is influenced by the Indian, British and American rules of procedure. The constitutional and administrative law has been derived from the Anglo-American systems while the Roman Dutch law is the basis for private legal matters. Kandyan Law, Muslim Law and Thesawalami are laws applicable to certain aspects of life and to defined sections of the population (Ranasinghe et al., 2007). Since Independence, Sri Lanka has experienced three armed conflicts. There were two insurrections in the south, which mainly involved the Sinhalese youth. These were led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), currently a leftist political party in the mainstream politics of the country, the first being in 1971 while the second was a more protracted conflict from 1987 to 1990. These conflicts did not trigger major mass movements of the population, though many individuals and families were temporarily displaced from their homes. The most severe conflict the country has faced was the 30-year armed conflict waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), aiming to create an autonomous Tamil state encompassing the Northern and Eastern provinces of the country. This was decisively ended when the Sri Lankan army overcame the LTTE in 2009 (Siriwardhana and Wickramage, 2014).
1.4 Health status Sri Lanka has been able to achieve a relatively high level of health while still being a low-middle-income country. The country has been able to eliminate malaria, filariasis, leprosy, polio and neonatal tetanus and achieve near elimination of most other vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) targeted by the EPI. Hospital data show declining trends in admissions for gastrointestinal infections and parasitic diseases. However, emerging new infections such as dengue, epidemic influenza and leptospirosis, and reemergence of old infections such as tuberculosis pose challenges to health (World Health Organization, 2018a).
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