UNB, Dhaka :Baroness Scotland has been elected Commonwealth Secretary-General at the Commonwealth summit in Malta.The new Secretary-General was picked in a closed session during the 24th biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).The process was overseen by the CHOGM Chair and the Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat on Friday, according to the Commonwealth website.Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali represented Bangladesh to the session.Baroness Scotland said, the Commonwealth shares a great deal and it has 33 percent of the world’s population. “It has the capacity to bring together people of all religions; concentrate on what joins us. It’s a real opportunity to invest and work together. If you work together with people respectfully, you can bring about change. Human rights and development go hand-in-hand.”Patricia Scotland is the sixth Commonwealth Secretary-General and the first woman to take up this post.Born in Dominica in 1955, Baroness Patricia Scotland then moved with her family to Britain.She obtained her LLB in 1976, was called to the Bar in 1977 and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1991. She received a life peerage and was created Baroness Scotland of Asthal in 1997.
