Mohan Peiris sworn in as new chief justice

Former Attorney General Mohan Peiris was sworn in as the 44th Chief Justice of Sri Lanka a short while ago. He was sworn in before President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees.

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.
http://www.adaderana.lk/news.php?nid=21281&mode=beauti

ජනාධිපති නීතීඥ මොහාන් පීරිස් ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ නීතිපතිවරයෙක් විය. කොළඹ ශාන්ත ජෝසප් විදුහලේ හා රාජකීය විදුහලේ ආදිශිෂ්‍යයෙකි.
ක්‍රීඩාවෙන් පාසැල් වර්ණ ලාභියෙකි.
පාසල් අධ්‍යාපනයෙන් පසු ශ්‍රී ලංකා නීති විද්‍යාලයයට ඇතුළත් වූ ඔහු 1975 දී නීතීඥවරයෙක් විය.
ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨ නීතීඥයන් වන ඩී ආර්ටී ගුණතිලක හා ජනාධිපති නීතීඥ දයා පෙරේරා මහත්වරුන් යටතේ නීති වෘත්තියට පිවිසි ඔහු 1978 දී එංගලන්තයේ හා වේල්සයේ ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨාධිකරණ සොලිස්ටර්වරයෙක් විය.
1981 දී ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට පැමිණි ඔහු නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවට බැඳුණේය. රජයේ නීතීඥවරයෙක් වූයේය.
වසර පහළොවක්ම රජයේ ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨ නීතීඥවරයකු වූ පීරිස් මහතා හාවඩ් විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයයේ නඩු විභාග උපදේශන පිළිබඳ ජාතික ආයතනයේ ද, කේම්බ්‍රිජ් හි ජීසස් විදුහලේ පොලිස් හා අපරාධ යුක්ති අධ්‍යයන කේන්ද්‍රයේ ද ජොර්ජ් වොෂින්ටන් විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයයේ ද පුහුණුව ලැබීය. නීතිපති දෙපාර්තමේන්තුවෙන් ඉවත් වී නීතීඥ වෘත්තියේ යෙදුණු ඔහු මූලික හා අභියාචනාධිකරණයන්හි නඩුවලට පෙනී සිටියේය. පරිපාලන නීතිය, වාණිජ නීතිය, ඉඩම් නීතිය, මූලික අයිතිවාසිකම්, කාර්මික නීතිය, අතුරු තහනම් හා අපරාධ නීතිය පිළිබඳ බේරුම්කරුවෙක් ද විය.
ශ්‍රී ලංකා නීති විද්‍යාලයයේ අන්තර් විභාග අංශයේ පරීක්ෂක මණ්ඩලයේ සභාපති ද, නීති විද්‍යාල පරීක්ෂකවරයකු වශයෙන් ද කටයුතු කළ ඔහු කොළඹ විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයේ නීති පීඨයේ බාහිර කථිකාචාර්යවරයෙක් විය.
ශ්‍රී ලංකා නීතීඥ සංගමයේ නියෝජ්‍ය සභාපතිවරයකු ද වූ ඔහු එක්සත් ජාතීන්ගේ මානව හිමිකම් කවුන්සිලයේ 8 වැනි සැසිවාරයේ සමාලෝචන කමිටුවට කරුණු දැක්වීමට ගිය ශ්‍රී ලංකා නියෝජිත පිරිසේ සාමාජිකයෙක් ද විය.
ඔහුගේ බිරිය ප්‍රියන්ති ද නීතීඥවරියකි.
http://www.lankadeepa.lk/index.php/articles/93204

අපි බලමු ඉස්සරහට මේදේ වෙයිද? කියලා

New Usurper is a yard stick/bait only. Government will appoint another person after seeing the reaction from public, opposition, international community and lawyers.

I see many a times, people are being praised for achieving high credentials from foreign universities.

This is no disrespect to any, but those were awarded after obtaining admission not on competitive entrance examinations like others but fulfilling a quota given to certain governments only.

Will they be successful in a competitive entrance examination is the question here.

Unless he agrees with government decisions, he will be sacked.

It doesn’t really matter if these decisions are good or bad for the country.

Malika1990 wrote:

අපි බලමු ඉස්සරහට මේදේ වෙයිද? කියලා

There is a common factor for all these faces(Person in this picture is not army commander SF but political SF) which is all of them are buddies with hidden enemies of our country....So if someone goes with this catagory they might face simillar destiny.

Whitebull wrote:There is a common factor for all these faces(Person in this picture is not army commander SF but political SF) which is all of them are buddies with hidden enemies of our country....So if someone goes with this catagory they might face simillar destiny.

There’s another common factor of all these people. They all are missing what Dr from Kelaniya and Wimal capable of.
I think everyone has to have the rights to express their views without getting in to a trouble (unless really really stupid).

Present is more important than the past.

I wish him all the best.

Is it only state Sri Lanka in the world having two chief justices?

One from parliament and one from Supreme court

This is now became miserable of Asia

UKboy wrote:

Whitebull wrote:There is a common factor for all these faces(Person in this picture is not army commander SF but political SF) which is all of them are buddies with hidden enemies of our country....So if someone goes with this catagory they might face simillar destiny.

There’s another common factor of all these people. They all are missing what Dr from Kelaniya and Wimal capable of.
I think everyone has to have the rights to express their views without getting in to a trouble (unless really really stupid).

Present is more important than the past.

There is another common factor of all these people.Yes they are incapable of doing what Dr from Kelaniya and Wimal capable of but they have the support of hypocritics,NGO buggers who are paid for those actions and most of all, support from pundits who are day dreaming about text book type freedom of democracy.

Whitebull wrote:

UKboy wrote:

Whitebull wrote:There is a common factor for all these faces(Person in this picture is not army commander SF but political SF) which is all of them are buddies with hidden enemies of our country....So if someone goes with this catagory they might face simillar destiny.

There’s another common factor of all these people. They all are missing what Dr from Kelaniya and Wimal capable of.
I think everyone has to have the rights to express their views without getting in to a trouble (unless really really stupid).

Present is more important than the past.

There is another common factor of all these people.Yes they are incapable of doing what Dr from Kelaniya and Wimal capable of but they have the support of hypocritics,NGO buggers who are paid for those actions and most of all, support from pundits who are day dreaming about text book type freedom of democracy.

Everyone should have equal right to express their opinions ( But It should have some limitings also ) . According to you If someone stay against the government they are part of a NGO OR Diaspora and anyone can't do anything against rulers . All should be yes-men එහෙයියෝ .
(These images use to give some idea about each parts)

Malika1990 wrote:According to you If someone stay against the government they are part of a NGO OR Diaspora

Do not say rubbish about me friend...according to your definition about my opinion I am also part of NGO or Diaspora,Please read my comment on this thread,(I can show you more threads but it may be waste of time.)
http://forum.srilankaequity.com/t24319-budget-2013

Malika1990 wrote:anyone can't do anything against rulers

And also please do not try to exaggerate the actual situation.
Did not you see protests organized against this impeachment ? Actually people can not differentiate Lipton circle from Hultsdorf.
Have not you seen news paper articles critisizing government in daily news papers ?
Have not you seen meetings against government policies ?
It is actually not the actions of government but this undue exaggeration ruins the entire image of this country.
We all have right to express our opinion but when doing it we should think about our country first.

Malika1990 wrote:(These images use to give some idea about each parts)

Yes it is nice to be dramatic when you say something but first think about the harm that may happen to the country with that dramatism.

හොරු සමග හෙළුවෙන් .....welcome to the club

For some who stop at nothing to defend the govt's actions, this impeachment is a needy thing in this century.
However, others argue that whether the actions have been taken in a proper manner other than having the prime objective of removing CJ.

No offense WB, this is not to argue over ur thinking, What I feel is; the over exposure and the publicity this event has got in international arena has anyway ruined the entire image of this country.
Parliament has abt 4 out of 5 powers hence the whole task was a piece of cake from the beginning. Ministers who represented the independent committee from governing side only had to execute the play written by someone.

We should not bring NGO or Diaspora to this case, it’s far from their interest imo.. Besides, habitually we’ve been draggin’ these parties to any scene in SL too.
On the other hand, hypocrites are normally born in these cases and can be witnessed in both sides so cant point a finger to them either. After all, in many cases, there are ppl who follow one side for their benefit too..
In news papers, ppl criticize the actions taken against CJ. Nevertheless, in TV, govt’ try to justify what they’ve done.. So the things would even out.

Any person with least intelligence would even understand that a crime is a punishable event but the execution of commands has to be in a decent manner.
It is however argued, again, whether as a citizen of SL, should CJ be given priority on this case as evidently the supreme-court has opened on a holiday to discuss her appeal.
However, I still failed to see any transparency over the actions of panel of judgement committee in this case.
This is just my idea.. To me its not in the best way of doing things.

This comes in a time where many a ppl even justify the be-heading of Rizana, where a majority in SL see it as a barbaric way of executing the law.. Have we got a say in any of these incidents?

I do not know why some people can not understand the simple english written in the Constitution.I have mentioned almost all the relavant articles from the Constitution in another thread. An average intelligent person can understand whether this committee is legal or not.
Everyone knows government want to remove CJ. Otherwise why the hell they brought an impeachment ? So what we need to look in to this is whether government has followed the proper procedure mentioned in the Constitution.The procedure is clearly mentioned in the Constitution and imo government has followed that procedure without any failure.
Problem is these hypocrites cry for small matters in government but do not say anything about unethical actions taken by her.Even a little kid can understand her actions are simillar to the actions taken by a corrupted power hungry politician.Problem is we can not talk about any influence to the court as it may give rise to contempt to court.Anyway anyone can understand that government has not unethically intervened the Supreme Court or Appeal Court on this matter.
Almost all the organizations appeared in favour of her are NGOs.So there is definite NGO involvement on this matter.We all know how some NGOs acted during war era tearing our countries image.Even now they have not given up their plans.If anyone can not understand this bit I have to tell either you do not know anything about these things or you are a hypocrite.

My support to this government does not mean that I approve their all the actions.But when it comes to the matter of national security or unitaryness of this country government still act in patriotic manner.Till they act in this way yes I will support them with criticisms.I am not ashamed to say that.But most so called independent critizers should be ashamed of themselves as even though they claim they are independent they are actually not independent.

My understanding was that the counts that she was finally charged could have been easily dealt with the normal court proceedings and if she was found guilty by the court, then the government can either forces her to go either way.

The question here is why the Impeachment was chosen instead.

They Govt knew well that such charges will not stand good in any court (unless they have a quickly assembled Kangaroo court like the court marshalling of General Sarath Foneka) and also want to see the back of her for some obvious reasons.

The Court has already given a ruling of the unconstitutionality of the Select Committee and therefore whatever the decisions taken by that too are considered unconstitutional.

Government 100% correctly followed the constitution to get rid of former CJ. That's not the point we all are making.

But what matter most is why government did want to get rid of her? Was it only because of her unethical behaviour? Or was it because of the drama behind Divinaguma? If she had said Yes to divinaguma, things would have been so different.

If someone can investigates what happened to Tsunami funds then surely former CJ’s (so called unethical) actions were just peanuts.

Impeachment will impact on foreign investment-US
Tuesday, 15 January 2013 13:41

Reiterating its concern on the impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, the United States yesterday said any action that undermines an independent judiciary would impact on Sri Lanka’s ability to attract foreign investment.’

Addressing the media, during the State Department’s daily news Briefing in Washington, spokesperson Victoria Nuland said, “Well, we are deeply concerned about the impeachment of Sri Lankan Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake. The impeachment proceedings against her were conducted, as you know, in defiance of the Supreme Court order. And from our perspective, this impeachment raises serious questions about the separation of powers in Sri Lanka, which is a fundamental tenet of a healthy democracy. Throughout these proceedings, we’ve repeatedly conveyed to the Government of Sri Lanka our concern that there was a lack of due process, and we’ve also made very clear our view that actions undermining an independent judiciary would impact on Sri Lanka’s ability to attract foreign investment.”

She also said the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, and the United Nations have all issued statements expressing strong concerns about this process.

“We think that there are serious questions about the health and future of Sri Lanka’s democracy and that they really need to roll up their sleeves and work on it,” Ms. Nuland added.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/news/25005-impeachment-will-impact-on-foreign-investment-us.html

This is what they are planning for.

I'm 100% sure former CJ knew the consequences of this impeachment, she knew the law very well and she knew government was having 2/3 of majority in the parliament. She could have shown her protest to this motion in a much professional way like all the past CJs who faced such issues in SL. However ppl around her made this a big drama to gain international attention to chase the government,with her consent.අපි උසාවිය ළඟ horn එක ගැහුවත් අපිට දඩ , එයාල එක ඇතුලේ පොල් ගැහුවත් මොකුත් නැ. In countries like ours governments are corrupted/inefficient by default, so we could not expect 100% impartiality even in dreams.

As I read from news articles on this matter sections/procedures related to her impeachment is a carbon copy of US Constitution,but US is saying this violates fundamental rights Very Happy . Even UK follows the same process for supreme court judges, In US this impeachment process have been practiced for more around 200 years with amendments. I certainly feel that we need sm changes to this process,but a court could not insist a government to introduce new laws to this process when an impeachment is going on. They can only give an opinion in this matter they also have to follow the law given in the constitution.

Kithsiri wrote:My understanding was that the counts that she was finally charged could have been easily dealt with the normal court proceedings and if she was found guilty by the court, then the government can either forces her to go either way.

The question here is why the Impeachment was chosen instead.

My friend how could the courts hear a case against CJ in an impartial manner when, when their boss (CJ) is in control of all the courts. Pls forget Mrs.Bandaranayake and MR from this issue and think in a logical manner. CJ has ultimate powers to control judges, So can we expect an impartial hearing form them in such a situation. That's why those rights to take such actions are given to the Parliament which is not related to courts. How they use those is a different matter.

UKboy wrote:But what matter most is why government did want to get rid of her? Was it only because of her unethical behaviour? Or was it because of the drama behind Divinaguma? If she had said Yes to divinaguma, things would have been so different.

I do not know whether her dicision on divinaguma is constitutional or not.But we all know this provincial councils are white elephant which was forcibly put on us by former Indian Prime-minister.There is no point of giving further strength to provincial council on any matter.

UKboy wrote:If someone can investigates what happened to Tsunami funds then surely former CJ’s (so called unethical) actions were just peanuts.

On the otherhand තමන්ගේ කිල්ලෝටයෙත් හුණු ඩිංගක් හරි තියෙන විත්තිය දන්නවනම් that person should know how to act if that person wants to keep her states.(Anyone can not say my peanut is smaller than ur any other nut so that I should not be punished before you.)

UKboy wrote:Government 100% correctly followed the constitution to get rid of former CJ. That's not the point we all are making.

I do not know what you have meant by the word WE as almost all the supporters of her cry about procedure but not about the accusations.

kas wrote: CJ has ultimate powers to control judges

Can you enlighten us all about this Please?

Also don't you see where the ultimate power is here and majority of the members of the select committee members were "Boot licker" of the ultimate power.

The power wants to see her back for obvious reasons.

Can we expect a fair decision from them either then?

Whitebull wrote:

UKboy wrote:If someone can investigates what happened to Tsunami funds then surely former CJ’s (so called unethical) actions were just peanuts.

On the otherhand තමන්ගේ කිල්ලෝටයෙත් හුණු ඩිංගක් හරි තියෙන විත්තිය දන්නවනම් that person should know how to act if that person wants to keep her states.(Anyone can not say my peanut is smaller than ur any other nut so that I should not be punished before you.)

Then the majority of the MPs should be punished n send home? Do you still think because of her accusations, this government decided to get rid of her? Hell noooo.
I would be an extremely proud Sri Lankan if it really happened in that way.

Whitebull wrote:

UKboy wrote:Government 100% correctly followed the constitution to get rid of former CJ. That's not the point we all are making.

I do not know what you have meant by the word WE as almost all the supporters of her cry about procedure but not about the accusations.

As you recognise many supporter of her believe that the government breeched the rules in the constitution to remove her but I don’t think so.
Sadly some critics of her strongly believe that because of her accusations, she was impeached.

Of course this government did liberate the country but just sake of that I’m not too sure we have to say Yes to things like this impeachment as well as expropriation law.

I do not know why some people can not understand the simple English written in the Constitution.I have mentioned almost all the relevant articles from the Constitution in another thread. An average intelligent person can understand whether this committee is legal or not.( WHITEBULL}

Interpretation of constitution and various Act of parliament is an accepted practice in any democratic System.If is not a problem of English or any other Language

How Mr Sarath Siva interpret written Law and gave judgement in various
instances I think written law is very clear about MPP who act against
party detectives.Bur Mr Sarath Silva has given different interpretation andAll accepted

Anyway our friend has selected suitable name to identify himself !

D.G.Dayaratne wrote:I do not know why some people can not understand the simple English written in the Constitution.I have mentioned almost all the relevant articles from the Constitution in another thread. An average intelligent person can understand whether this committee is legal or not.( WHITEBULL}

Interpretation of constitution and various Act of parliament is an accepted practice in any democratic System.If is not a problem of English or any other Language

How Mr Sarath Siva interpret written Law and gave judgement in various
instances I think written law is very clear about MPP who act against
party detectives.Bur Mr Sarath Silva has given different interpretation andAll accepted

Anyway our friend has selected suitable name to identify himself !

Save your words friend.Useless arguing with these " bath kana harak". What this guy do here is " denawa nokiya dena eka".