President Maithripala Sirisena recently appointed 25 eminent lawyers as President’s Counsel and on May 25 they will take oath of office at a ceremonial sitting of the Supreme Court. Thereafter, the appointees would be considered as President’s Counsel and are called to the Inner Bar.
President’s Counsel is a professional rank and status conferred to the appointee by the President under Article 33 of the Constitution. Attorneys chosen to hold the honorary title are those who have practised as counsel in original and appellate courts for many years either in the official or unofficial bar.
The Daily News will in the next few days offer a brief look into the achievements of the recent appointees. We start with Attorneys M.A. Sumanthiran, Saliya Peiris and Upul Jayasuriya.
Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanthiran
Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanthiran is a lawyer, politician and Member of Parliament. He studied at Royal College Colombo and has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Madras. He then proceeded to Sri Lanka Law College, qualifying as an advocate.
He started practising law in Colombo, appearing in civil litigation cases in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, Commercial High Court and the District Courts. Sumanthiran’s successful cases include the privatization of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, privatization of Lanka Marine Services and the closure of Pramuka Bank.
Sumanthiran has appeared in several fundamental rights cases and judicial reviews of Parliamentary legislation and executive action including the charging of levy for water and establishing a revenue authority. He also prevented the forced expulsion of Tamils from Colombo and successfully challenged an anti-conversion bill which the Courts struck down as being unconstitutional. He has also appeared for petitioners against the proposed 18th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution which were found to be unconstitutional and required two- thirds majority in Parliament in addition to a referendum.
He has also worked on several public interest cases including the ongoing attempt by residents of the Valikamam North High Security Zone to get their land back from the Sri Lankan military.
He is one of Sri Lanka’s top human rights and constitutional lawyers. He received an LLM degree in internet and electronic law from Monash University in 2001.
He was appointed as the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) National List MP during the 2010 parliamentary elections. In May 2012, he was elected as Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi’s (ITAK) Secretary for Foreign and Legal Affairs. He re-entered Parliament in 2015 as a TNA candidate for the Jaffna district.
Sumanthiran also contributes to the Constitution making process as a TNA member of the Constitutional Assembly Steering Committee and also a Co- Chair along with Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne of the Management Committee of the Secretariat for the Constitutional Assembly.
Upul Jayasuriya
Upul Jayasuriya joined the Bar in 1976 and later joined the Attorney General’s Department as a State Counsel in 1978. In 1978 he was appointed as the first ever Legal Advisor to the Greater Colombo Economic Commission, (presently known as the Board of Investments of Sri Lanka - the premier Institution promoting and facilitating FDIs in to Sri Lanka of which he currently holds the position of Chairman) while serving the Attorney General’s Department as a State Counsel.
He was appointed Chairman of Sri Lanka State Trading Tractor Corporation in 1982. In 1983 he was awarded the Top Young Outstanding Professional Award under the Entrepreneurship category for converting the said corporation to a profit-making venture. Thereafter, he took over reigns of Ceylon Oils & Fats Corporation.
Jayasuriya was elected as the Secretary to the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) for the period 1991 – 1993. During this period he initiated the filing of nearly 3,000 fundamental rights applications through the support of the BASL before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka on behalf of those taken into custody in the 1989 insurrection. It paved the way for the release of a large number of detainees and expedited the instituting of legal proceedings against scores of others who were languishing in detention without valid charges.
He was appointed Managing Director/CEO of Ceylon Chocolates Ltd in 1997 and converted the same to a substantial profit centre. He was also elected President of the Colombo Law Society in 2008.
Jayasuriya was also responsible, together with late Desmond Fernando (Former President of the International Bar Association), in obtaining the support of the IBA delegation to probe the conduct of the Former Chief Justice Sarath Silva. He was elected the President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka in March 2013 with the highest ever majority in the history of the Association.
This was at one of the most critical times for the legal profession and independence of Judiciary in Sri Lanka with the illegal removal of Dr Shiranee Bandaranayake as the Chief Justice of the Country.
He defied the age old tradition of inviting the Country's 'sitting' Chief Justice ('the successor to Dr. Shiranee') for his official induction as the President of the BASL. Instead he invited Dr. Shiranee Bandaranayake whom he considered to have been prevented from discharging her duties as the Chief Justice. He gave the much-needed leadership to the Bar during this crucial period. After the new government was formed on January 8, 2015, he fought hard to bring back Dr. Shiranee Bandaranayake.
Jayasuriya was also presented with the 2015-Rule of Law Award of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association in Glasgow with a cash donation of US$ 5,000. He presented the said cash donation to the wife of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda, who was murdered by the previous regime.
Jayasuriya has also spearheaded the highly successful Golden Jubilee Law Asia Conference that was held in Colombo - Sri Lanka in August 2016 with the participation of nearly 400 foreign lawyers, as well as the Conference of the Chief Justices that published a Colombo declaration on Rule of Law. He has pioneered the establishment of a fund for the benevolence of the legal profession.
He has been appearing in a large number of fundamental rights applications and public interest matters defending the interests of affected parties and the rights of the legal profession. With regard to the conferment of Silk to seniors of the Bar he espoused the cause that more Bar Seniors from outstations be considered.
Saliya Pieris
Saliya Pieris is an advocate for a strong and independent legal profession has consistently stood for the Rule of Law and the independence of the Judiciary. He played a prominent role in the lawyers' campaign against the impeachment of Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake and between 2010 and 2015 he defended Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka in two of the three criminal prosecutions in the High Court, from which he was acquitted. Pieris was a Senior Counsel for several civil society activists who challenged the former Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran in respect of the Bond scandal and in the Fundamental Rights application filed by residents of Meethotamulla against the dumping of garbage. In 2010 he represented the Deputy Editor of Ravaya in the challenge to the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
Between 2015 and 2017 he was the Deputy President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka and in October 2015 was appointed as a Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka.
Peiris received his secondary education at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo where he was Head Prefect. After leaving school he was a journalist and political correspondent for the Sun and Weekend Newspapers. At Sri Lanka Law College, he was elected President of the Law Students’ Union. While a law student he was selected as Best Counsel in the English medium at the Triangular Moot Competition between Legal Educational Institutions, leading winning teams in both Sinhala and English media.
He was admitted to the Bar in November 1992 having apprenticed in the Chambers of the Attorney General and of Tirantha Walaliyedda PC. Immediately upon entering the Bar, he was appointed a State Counsel in the Attorney General’s Department. After reverting to the private bar, he established his own law chambers, and presently practices in the Superior Courts and the Original Courts in Fundamental Rights and Public law, Criminal law and Civil law. Over the years he has mentored many juniors who have established themselves in private practice or have entered the judicial service.
He holds a Master’s Degree in International Business Law from the University of London and a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the Open University of Sri Lanka.
Pieris, a lecturer in law, is Chairman of the CFPS Law School, Colombo. He has contributed many papers and articles on law and politics.
He is also a member of the Board of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute and of the Bandaranaike International Diplomatic Training Institute (BIDTI) and among his other achievements, he was selected as an Eisenhower Fellow in 2012, invited by the South Asia Institute of the Harvard University to present a Seminar on “The Struggle for Democracy in Sri Lanka” and addressed the East West Centre, on “The Democratic Crisis in Sri Lanka”. He is an Alumni of the Dealing with the Past (DWP) programme in Switzerland.
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