Parliamentary Council gives consent to new CJ appointment

Parliamentary Council has given its consent to President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s nominee Peter Mohan Maithri Peiris to be appointed the 44^thChief Justice of Sri Lanka.

Mohan Peiris is a former Attorney General of Sri Lanka. He was educated at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo and Royal College Colombo, where he won colours in cricket. Thereafter he entered the Sri Lanka Law College and was called to the Bar in 1975, starting his legal practice under senior lawyers D. R. P. Gunatilleke and Daya Perera, PC. Thereafter he enrolled as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1978.

In 1981 he joined the Attorney General’s Department as a State Counsel, later becoming a Senior State Counsel serving for over 15 years. 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.

He specialized in original and appellate courts in the areas of inter alia, administrative law, commercial law, land law, fundamental rights, industrial law, injunctions and criminal law and as an arbitrator. He was the Chairman of the Board of Examiners for the Intermediate Examination and Examiner of the Sri Lanka Law College, a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Colombo, Deputy President of the Sri Lanka Bar Association (BASL) and a member of the Sri Lankan Delegation to the Universal Periodic review at the 8th Session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations.

His wife Priyanthi is also an Attorney-at-Law.