New members of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka receive their letters of appointment at the Presidential Secretariat. Photograph: PMD
The Sri Lankan president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has appointed retired Supreme Court judge Vijith Malalgoda as chair of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL).
The other new members of the commission are S.Y.M. Gomes, former diplomat A.L.A. Azeez, Dr S.S.S.B.D.H. Jayawardena and Professor T. Jayasingam, the President’s Media Division said .
Their letters of appointment were presented by the Secretary to the President, Dr Nandika Sanath Kumanayake, at the Presidential Secretariat on Thursday (30 October). The appointments fill vacancies left by the end of the previous members’ terms.
The HRCSL is Sri Lanka’s statutory human rights body, and handles complaints including from Tamils facing arrest and harassment by the Sri Lankan state, such as the Hindu worshippers detained at Vedukkunaari Hill in 2024.
The outgoing commission recommended that terrorism-related offences be dealt with under ordinary criminal law, in observations on the proposed Protection of the State from Terrorism Bill (PSTA). It also supplied the UN with figures showing that 46 people were detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2025, despite the government’s pledge to repeal it, Human Rights Watch reported .
Tamils have long criticised the commission for failing to act on abuses by the Sri Lankan state in the North-East. When eight Hindu worshippers were arrested at Vedukkunaari in March 2024, TNPF MP Selvarajah Kajendren questioned the commission’s silence , saying it had yet to investigate or even inquire despite a formal complaint, and asking whether it was “complicit in these illegal arrests”.
In 2020, Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed an all-Sinhala commission with no Tamil or Muslim members, under powers granted by the 20th Amendment. Former commissioner Ambika Satkunanathan, its only Tamil member until her resignation earlier that year, said the commission could no longer be considered independent .
“Our track record… is that we either have not inquired into violations or if we have inquired into them the reports have not been impartial and objective or the reports have not been released or if the reports have been released no action has been taken to hold those responsible accountable for the violations,” she said.
In 2021, the commission was criticised for accepting jailers’ denials during its inquiry into then state minister Lohan Ratwatte, who stormed Anuradhapura prison and forced Tamil political prisoners to kneel at gunpoint. Months later, a Jaffna University student was summoned for interrogation by the Terrorism Investigation Division for giving information to the commission.
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