top

Department of the Attorney General


Hon. K.C.KAMALASABAYSON, President’s Counsel

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SRI LANKA

 

The department is headed by the Attorney General who is the Chief Law Officer of the State. 
Hon. K.C. Kamalasabayson was appointed as Attorney-General of Sri Lanka on 16th October,  1999. 

He is a career officer of the Attorney -  General's Department having first joined as a State Counsel in 1974. 
He was enrolled and admitted as an Advocate in June 1972 having obtained a  first class honours pass at the Advocates – Final examination.  He hold a Masters Degree in Law  in Public Law from the University of Colombo and a Masters Degree in International Business Law from King's College, University of London.   

He was appointed President's Counsel in 1996.   Prior to assuming office as Attorney - General he held the post of  Solicitor  - General from 1998.


DEPARTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

The Attorney General’s department functions with a cadre of 199 professionals which includes the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, 5 Additional Solicitors General, 20 Deputy Solicitors General, 40 Senior State Counsel, and 114 State Counsel, 2 State Attorneys, 5 Senior State Attorneys, 10 Assistant State Attorneys and 1 Accountant.

 

The department continues to perform its traditional role of advising Government and its Institutions and representing Government and its Institution in litigation. In the performance of its work, the department operates in distinct branches. These are the civil branch, the criminal branch, the State Attorneys branch, the Supreme Court branch, and the Corporation branch.  There are also special units to which specially identified responsibilities have been assigned. These are, the Missing Persons Unit (which handles matters relating to persons who are alleged to have disappeared), Non-Summary Unit (which was set up to expedite non-summary inquiries in Magistrate’s Courts), the EER Unit (which handles cases under Emergency Regulations), the Habeas Corpus Unit (which handles cases filed in relation to missing persons) Child Abuse Unit and the Public Petitions Unit (which handles public petitions).

 

Statistics regarding the work out put of the department is as follows:-


Performance of the Attorney General's Department 2005 (Jan- Sept 2005)
 

Branch/Unit

No. of Case

files opened

in 2004 0nly

No. of Indictments filed

No. of legal opinions

given

No. Acquitted

No. of cases closed

Civil Branch

  1,586

     00

  122

 00

   142

Criminal Branch

  5,151

2,664

1,572

522

4,742

State Attorney's Branch

      31

     00

   00

  00

    627

Supreme Court Branch

    432

     00

   00

  00

   188

Corporation Branch

 1,531

    00

   00

  00

1,041

Missing Persons Unit

   205

    23

    40

  00

   ,63

Non Summary Unit

 1,600

    00

    00

  00

1,559

EER/TR Unit

     02

    02

    00

  01

   03

Habeas Corpus Unit

     00

    00

    00

  00

   169

Public Petitions Unit

   507

  00

      318

  00

   189

Child Abuse Unit

1,782

787

  257

167

 1,211

Total

12827

3476

2309

690

9,934

 

The major functions of the Department are :

 

  • Institution and defense of civil actions for and on behalf of the Republic, Ministers and Public Officers
  • Institution and conduct of criminal proceedings for and on behalf of the Republic
  • Examination of Bills for their consistency with the provisions of the Constitution
  • Providing on request, legal advice or opinions to State institutions
  • Appearance before the Supreme Court in proceedings in the Supreme Court in its exercise of jurisdiction in relation to constitutional, fundamental rights, consultative and breach of parliamentary privilege matters
  • Appearance in court and assisting court in respect of disciplinary proceedings against members of the Bar.

 

                      

Home