Mohan Pieris - 44th Chief Justice of Sri Lanka

Mohan Peiris, a former Attorney General and currently Legal Adviser to the Cabinet of Ministers have been nominated by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to be the next Chief Justice of Sri Lanka and is expected to be sworn today evening as the 44th Chief Justice of Sri Lanka.

His name has been submitted to the Parliamentary Council (PC) headed by Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution which vets names of those nominated to hold high office.

Accordingly, the Parliamentary Council, which meets this morning, with Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa in the chair, is expected to approve the appointment of Pieris as the new Chief Justice.

Peiris was the Attorney General till 2011. After he retired from office, he was appointed as a legal consultant to the Cabinet of Ministers. Also, he has lobbied for Sri Lanka during the sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in recent years. Currently, he is engaged in supervising the implementations of recommendations by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).

Mohan Peiris, an old boy of St Joseph’s College Colombo and Royal College, and he entered the Law College. On passing out as an attorney-at-law he served as a junior to President’s Counsel Daya Perera and senior attorney-at-law D. R. P. Gunatillake. Thereafter he enrolled as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1978. He later served as a solicitor in Wales.

In 1981 he joined the Attorney General’s Department as a State Counsel and later served for about 15 years as a Senior State Counsel.

During this time he trained at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy at Harvard Law School, the Centre for Police and Criminal Justice Studies at Jesus College, Cambridge and at George Washington University.

- Asian Tribune -