Masters of the Bench

Mathilda Twomey (née Butler-Payette) is a native of Seychelles. She graduated from the University of Kent at Canterbury with a BA in English and French Law in 1986 and a Diplôme de Droit Français from the Université de Paris-Sud in 1985. She was admitted to the Bar of England and Wales in 1987 and practised in Seychelles as a barrister. She graduated with an LLM in Public Law and subsequently a PhD in comparative law from the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2015. She was a member of the Seychelles Constitutional Commission in 1993 which was charged with drafting the third constitution of Seychelles. She was appointed the first female justice on the Seychelles Court of Appeal in 2011 and the first woman Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Seychelles in 2015. In 2020 she ended her tenure in the this post but continued to serve as a sessional justice of appeal in the Seychelle's apex court.

She has published widely including her monograph “Legal métissage in a micro jurisdiction: the mixing of Common Law and Civil Law in Seychelles”. Her research interests include comparative law, African legal systems and mixed legal systems.