HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF SRI LANKA, Annual Report 2020 1.3 Organizational Structure At the apex of the organization is the Board of the Commission, comprising the Chairperson and Commissioners. It takes policy decisions for the discharging of the statutory mandate of the Commission. Board Meetings are held each month. The term of the Commission appointed in 2015 lapsed in 2020. As a result, a new Chairperson and Commissioners were appointed to the Commission on 10 December 2020 by His Excellency, the President. At present, the Commission functions with 148 staff members. It consists of 04 Divisions namely: Inquiries & Investigations (I&I), Education & Special Programmes (ED&SP), Research & Monitoring (R&M), and Administration & Finance (A&F) Divisions. A Division on International Relations (IR) will be operationalized as soon as the Commission is in a position to recruit requisite staff. Each Division is headed by a Director and supervised by the Chairperson and/or a Commissioner/ Commissioners. In addition, the Commission operates through 10 Regional Offices (Ampara, Anuradhapura, Badulla, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Kalmunai, Kandy, Matara, Trincomalee and Vavuniya), and three sub-offices (Kilinochchi, Mannar, and Puttalam) to carry out its functions (See appendix 1). Each regional Office is headed by a Regional Coordinator and supervised by the Chairperson and/or a Commissioner/ Commissioners. The HRCSL operates at regional level in order to increase protection of human rights and bring the work of the Commission closer to the people. The majority of the population accesses the Commission through the Regional and Sub-Offices. Regional and Sub-Offices therefore play a crucial role in the effective discharge of the Commission’s mandate, going beyond that of a mere conduit between the Head Office and the people in the regions. These offices conduct a full range of activities including receiving complaints, investigating into allegations of violations, providing consultations on alleged violations of human rights, mediating in the settlement of disputes, referral of violations to the Head Office for recommendations, carrying out monitoring activities, conducting awareness raising at regional level, and collaborating and coordinating with civil society organizations. 19