Pen sketch of commissioners
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appointed the eight member 'Lessons
Learnt and Reconciliation' Commission to report on the lessons to be
learnt from the events in the period, Feb 2002 to May 2009. The
Commissioners are:
C. R. de Silva PC, Chairman, is a former Attorney General and
Solicitor General of Sri Lanka. He was a Member of the Council of Legal
Education, and of the Law Commission of Sri Lanka. He was called to the
Bar in 1974, worked in the chambers of several prominent lawyers of the
Private Bar before joining the Attorney General's Department in 1975. He
took "silk" in 1997.
He has been a member of the Sri Lanka delegation to many
international bodies including the Afro-Asian Legal Consultative
Committee, UN Human Rights Council, UN Human Rights Committee, UN
Convention against Torture Committee and the UN Committee for the
Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Dr. Rohan Perera PC, was Legal Advisor of the Foreign Affairs
Ministry and was elected as the Sri Lankan candidate to the
International Law Commission, by the UN General Assembly in New York
securing one of the seven seats allocated to the Asian region.
Dr. Perera has served for over 30 years in the Foreign Affairs
Ministry initially as assistant Legal Advisor and thereafter, as a Legal
Advisor. He was also chairman of the UN ad-hoc Committee on Measures to
Eliminate International Terrorism which concluded the International
Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.
He also served as a member of the group of legal advisors and
constitutional experts appointed by the President to advise the All
Party Representatives Committee on constitutional reforms to resolve the
issues relating to ensuring ethnic unity in Sri Lanka.
Prof. Karunaratne Hangawatte, currently Professor of Criminal Justice
in the State of Nevada's premier university in Las Vegas, has undertaken
extensive research on global terrorism that has qualified him to teach a
course on terrorism in the Criminal Justice Department.
Dr. Karu Hangawatte received his LL.B. from the University of Ceylon,
Colombo, in 1970 and his Ph.D. (with distinction) in Criminal Justice in
1984 from the State University of New York at Albany. He is an
attorney-at-law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. His area of interest
includes Law and Society, Criminal Law and Procedure, Constitutional
Law, Legal Method and Process, Terrorism and Political Violence, and the
Administration of Criminal Justice. He has been an Assistant Secretary
of Justice in Sri Lanka.
He was one of the experts who worked on the United Nations
declaration on the victims of crime and abuse of power and violation of
human rights, which covered the cold war era. During the time he was in
Sri Lanka Hangawatte occupied a position in the legal research section
in the Justice Ministry and later as Assistant Secretary of the same
Ministry. He has also received several teaching awards at UNLV.
HMGS Palihakkara, was former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to
the United Nations. He has served on the Secretary-General's Advisory
Board on Disarmament Matters. He retired as the Foreign Secretary of Sri
Lanka in December 2006 after 38 years of civil and diplomatic service.
Since the 1990s, he has served on a number of assignments to the
United Nations in Geneva and New York, covering work related to the
General Assembly's First Committee (Disarmament and International
Security), and later the Conference on Disarmament, as well as on human
rights, humanitarian and economic and social affairs. He either led or
participated as a member of Sri Lanka's delegation in several peace and
security/disarmament-related conferences and meetings, including the
1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
He served as Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the United
Nations and head of delegation to the Conference on Disarmament from
1997 to 2000. After his work in Geneva, he was appointed Ambassador to
Thailand, Cambodia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic and Viet Nam, and
from 2000 to 2004 served as his country's Permanent Representative to
the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific (ESCAP). Palihakkara served as Acting Director-General and
Deputy Director-General of Sri Lanka's Peace Secretariat (SCOPP), which
serviced the Norwegian-facilitated peace talks (2002) and subsequent
ceasefire (2003).
Holding a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Ceylon,
Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, Mr. Palihakkara entered his country's foreign
service in 1979.
Professor M T M Jiffry, is Vice Chairman of the University Grants
Commission, Senior Professor of Physiology -University of Sri
Jayewardenepura, an Examiner of the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine,
and former President, Health Informatics Society of Sri Lanka. He has
been active in the building of inter-ethnic understanding and has been
engaged in the advance of education in Sri Lanka to serve the needs of
all communities.
C. Chanmugam is former Secretary to the Treasury and former member of
the Monetary Board of Sri Lanka. He was also Chairman of the Board of
Directors of Fitch Ratings Sri Lanka. An Associate of the Royal
Institute of Chemistry, Chanmugam has held many positions of distinction
in Sri Lanka and abroad.
He was the Executive Director of the Institute of Policy Studies, Sri
Lanka. A former Advisor to the Finance and Planning Ministry, was also
the Secretary to the Finance and Planning Ministry, the Alternate
Governor to the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank (1987-88). In
Sri Lanka, he was also Chairman, Foreign Investment and Advisory
Committee and the Controller of Tea, Rubber and Coconut industries.
Mano Ramanathan, had a long and distinguished career in the legal
profession where she rose to be the Deputy Legal Draughtsman. She has
been active in the reform of law to strengthen the rights of women and
children, as has been associated with work involving women's
empowerment. She is the wife of the late Justice P. Ramanathan.
Maxwell Paranagama, a former High Court Judge had a distinguished
career in the legal profession before the elevation to the bench of the
High Court. |
