President of the Court of Appeal:

Judge S. Sri Skandarajah

Judge Sri Skandarajah was appointed Judge of the Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka in 2004 and had served over seven years before being appointed President of the Court of Appeal.

Judge Sri Skandarajah was educated at Manipay Hindu College and Colombo Hindu College.

He holds a degree of Master of Laws (Legislative Drafting) awarded by the University of West Indies Barbados.

He joined the judiciary as a High Court Judge in 1997 and served in Vauniya upto 2000 and later as High Court Judge of Colombo. He was nominated by the Chief Justice to chair the panel of judges of the Trial-at-Bar to hear murder cases in Sri Lanka.

Before joining the judiciary in 1997 he was attached to the Attorney General's Department as a Senior State Counsel.

During that period from 1981 to 1997 had appeared for the State in the Superior Courts and had been advising Government Departments and Ministries on matters connected with litigation, draft legislations and contracts.

He was also a visiting lecturer of the Law Faculty of the University of Colombo and at present conducts lectures at the Judges Institute of Sri Lanka.

He had presented a research paper titled "Problems in Safeguarding Intellectual Property Rights in Sri Lanka" at a symposium on Intellectual Property Rights held in Bangkok Thailand, organised by the Asian Productivity Organisation in November 2003.

He has also presented a paper titled " Is Punishment an Effective Deterrent to Illegal Drug Use?" in the 14th Triennial Conference of the Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges' Association held in Toronto in 2006 and again on 'Justice for the Next Generation' in the Conference of the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association held in the University of Brighton, England in September 2010.