Anil Goonaratne

[1] Born to A. W. Gooneratne, a former High Court Judge, he was educated at Royal College Colombo.

Having started his legal practice in the unofficial bar, he joined the Attorney General's Department as a State Counsel in 1979 and later gained an LLM form the University of Exeter.

[2] Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa overlooked him several times for the post of President of the Court of Appeal as he was a member of the bench which issued a certiorari quashing the report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the impeachment against the then Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.

In February 2018, he was appointed as head of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed to probe the management of SriLankan Airlines and Mihin Lanka during the period of January 2006 to January 2018.

Their son Rajin Wickrama Gooneratne is a States Counsel in the Attorney General's Department.