New Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka Presents Credentials
The new Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Jayantha Jayasuriya, presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres today.
(As provided by the Protocol and Liaison Service)
Hon’ble Jayantha Jayasuriya, P.C. was appointed as the 47th Chief Justice of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, in April 2019. His Lordship was called to the Bar on 26th September 1982, having passed the final examination at the Sri Lanka Law College with Honours. He joined the Attorney General’s Department in November 1983 as a State Counsel and served in various capacities and was appointed as President’s Counsel in March 2012. His Lordship was appointed as the 29th Attorney General in February 2016 and remained the Attorney General until his elevation as the Chief Justice. His Lordship holds the distinction of being the sixth Attorney General to be appointed as the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka.
He served as Trial Attorney in the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (UN-ICTY) from September 2001 to August 2004 and for Rwanda (UN-ICTR) from November 2000 to August 2001. He was also an examiner and visiting lecturer of Sri Lanka Law College and the Kotalawala Defence University, a member of Sri Lanka Child Protection Authority and a consultant of Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank.
His Lordship is a Commonwealth Scholar (1992). He was awarded the, “Best Prosecutor 2012” by the International Association of Prosecutors, International Fellow of the National Attorneys General Training and Research Institute, USA. He was also awarded a Master of Philosophy from the University of Hong Kong, for the thesis “The Fair Hearing Guarantee under Article 14 of the ICCPR, And the Common Law Principles Governing the Conduct of a Criminal Trial – Identical or Overlapping? The Hong Kong Experience.”
He is Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka designate to the United Nations, New York, United States of America.