01. Justice Upaly Abeyrathne Rtd. (Chairman)
02.Justice Rohini Walgama Rtd.(Commissioner)
Was enrolled as an attorney-at-law on 11.02.1980 and was in practice till appointment as Magistrate on 03.11.1986.Appointed as Judge of the Court of Appeal on 20.09.2014. Appointed as a President of Court of appeal on 09.05.2017 and officiated till retirement on 17.06.2017
03.Attorney-at-Law Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena (Commissioner)
Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena graduated with Honours from the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo in 1993. Following admission to the Bar in 1995, she appeared in several landmark cases concerning the Freedom of Expression and Contempt of Court before the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka and international Tribunals as a public interest Attorney in the field of Public Law (till 2007).
Thereafter, her academic and research focus areas encompassed constitutional/criminal justice and rights protections; the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession and reform of Sri Lanka’s media laws and policies. Editor, LST Review, Deputy Editor, the Appellate Law Recorder (2004 – 2014) and Editorial Consultant (Legal) for the Sunday Times up to 2016, she has contributed an independent legal column to that newspaper during the past twenty three years. Legal consultant and legal advisor for inter alia the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICwS), the University of London, UK; the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the University of Sussex, UK; the Dignity Institute, Denmark; the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the World Bank and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), she also served as an independent expert to the Working Group on the Commonwealth Media Principles, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, 2021.
Her publications (books/chapters) include Rule of Law in Decline (Dignity Institute, Denmark, 2009); Still Seeking Justice (ICJ, Geneva, 2010); The Judicial Mind in Sri Lanka (co-edited w/ J de A Guneratne and G Gunetilleke, LST, Colombo 2010); Habeas Corpus in Sri Lanka;Theory and Practice of the Great Writ in Extraordinary Times (co-authored w/ J de A Guneratne), LST, Colombo, 2011) ;The Sri Lanka Papers (co-edited w/ Kumari Jayawardena, Zubaan, New Delhi and disseminated by University of Chicago Press Books, 2016); Embattled Media (co-edited w/ D Page and W Crawley, Sage, Delhi with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, 2015); Right to Information: Fruits of Long and Hard Labour, The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs (Routledge, London, 2018); Reflections on Sri Lanka’s RTI Act & RTI Regime (RTI Commission, Colombo, 2019) and Contempt of Court; The Prashant Bhushan Case, (Institute of Comparative Law, University of Colombo, 2021).
She is a Salzburg Fellow, a WISCOMP (New Delhi) Scholar of Peace, the 2013 Distinguished Visitor of the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, a member of the Advisory Board, Media Law Programme, University of Arizona, US, 2015-todate and contributing scholar, Australia-Myanmar Group of Constitutional Scholars, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2013-todate.
Conferred the D. R. Wijewardene Award for Earning the Appreciation of Peers and the Public by the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka as a result of her writings in 2014, she was again conferred that award in 2016 on behalf of all campaigners in recognition of collective efforts in drafting the Right to Information (RTI) Act, No 12 of 2016. She has also formulated draft legislation on contempt of court for the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (2006). Nominated by the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka to serve on the Right to Information Commission (RTIC) in its first term (September 2016-September 2021), she was nominated by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka to serve for the second term on the RTIC in October 2021.
04.Attorney-at-Law Jagath Liyana Arachchi (Commissioner)
Jagath Liyana Arachchi is a legal professional who graduated from the Law Faculty of the University of Colombo in 1996 and enrolled as an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Having obtained the Masters in Mass Communication from the University of Kelaniya, he has held a diverse range of well-recognized positions in both state and non-state institutions during the last 25 years. Having experience in law, right to information, human rights, anti-corruption, election monitoring, electoral reforms and public policy, he held the Deputy Director, Monitoring and Review, of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka and the Director, Information GRID, National Media Centre. He is a professional Trainer and has designed training manuals and rendered training for state and non-state institutions on a range of subjects. He is currently serving as a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication of Kelaniya University. Having worked in different capacities in the non-state sector, he has extended his expertise in Governance, Election Monitoring, Anti-Corruption, Media and Law, contributing to multifaceted civil society initiatives aiming to uphold the rights and freedoms of people. He is a writer and has authored a number of publications on a range of thematic areas, including but not limited to, Right to Information, Constitutional Reforms, Governance, Anti-corruption and Elections.
05.Mohomed Nahiya (Commissioner)