President’s Counsel, Mr. Sanjeeva Jayawardena

Mr Sanjeeva Jayawardena, President’s Counsel, was re-appointed to the Monetary Board of the Central Bank, for a fresh term of 6 years, upto June 2027, by President Gotabaya Rajapakse, consequent to his nomination being approved by the Parliamentary Council.

Mr.Sanjeeva Jayawardena is the first President’s Counsel to serve on the Monetary Board of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

He also presently serves, as the Chairman of the Monetary Board Level, External Debt Monitoring Committee and as the Chairman of the Monetary Board Level, Risk Oversight Committee.

He also chairs the Ethics Committee of the Central Bank.

Mr.Jayawardena, has been practicing exclusively in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal and is now, in his 30th year of practice at the Bar, having been called to the Bar in 1992.

He was thereafter conferred Silk, as President’s Counsel, in the year 2012.

He specialises in all aspects of Appellate law, as well as Constitutional and Public Law and has a varied practice in diverse fields and subjects, including civil, contractual, commercial, property, taxation, banking, labour and other disciplines of the law.

Mr.Jayawardena was appointed as a Commissioner of the Law Commission of Sri Lanka, by then President Maithripala Sirisena, in the year 2015 and was thereafter, re-appointed to the Law Commission, by His Excellency President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for a fresh term of five years.

He is a serving member of the Committee of Experts, appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers and the President, to draft a new Constitution for Sri Lanka.

He is the Chairman of the Presidential Experts Committee on the Implementation of Data Protection in Sri Lanka.

He is a serving member of the Council of the University of Colombo, which is the governing body of the University.

He is a member of the Incorporated Council of Legal Education, Chaired by the Honourable Chief Justice, which is the governing body of the Sri Lanka Law College.

He is also a member of the Board of Studies of the Sri Lanka Law College, which is the academic body of the Sri Lanka Law College.

He was recently appointed by the President, as a member of the Committee of senior President’s Counsel, to make recommendations to the President, on the Appointment of new President’s Counsel.

He was appointed recently to the Panel of Advisors, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon.G.L.Peiris.

Previously, he served on the Legal Cluster of the National Council for Economic Development, chaired by then Chief Justice, Sarath N. Silva PC.

He was a one time appointee to the Intellectual Property Commission of Sri Lanka.

Mr.Jayawardena was a recipient of the “Outstanding Young Persons of Sri Lanka” (TOYP) award in the year 2004.

He is an Honours graduate in Law, LLB (Hons), of the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo and has also secured an M.Phil. in law from the same institution and has presently completed his Doctoral thesis, for submission, in the Ph.D. Degree programme of the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo.

He has served as a member of the Special Committee of the M.Phil. degree in law of the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, and has also served as an examiner of both the LLM and the M.Phil. post graduate degree programmes and has delivered guest lectures at the faculty.

He is on the Advisory Board of the LLB Degree programme of the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology.

He is presently, a serving member of the Board of Trustees of the Royal College Union.

He serves on the Senior Editorial Board of the Royal Institute of Colombo, (RIC) Law Journal

Mr. Jayawardena’s Father, the late Mr.Stanley Jayawardena, also served on the Monetary Board, from 01.03.1989 to 12.09.1994