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Rajeev elected to LAWASIA Ex Co

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Rajeev Amarasuriya, Secretary of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka has been elected uncontested to the Executive Committee of LAWASIA (The Law Association for Asia and Pacific) for 2021 / 2022.

LAWASIA is a regional association of lawyers, judges, jurists and legal organisations, which advocates for the interests and concerns of the Asia Pacific legal profession.

For over 50 years, LAWASIA has operated as a platform to promote the cross-jurisdictional exchange of legal knowledge; as a voice of the legal profession; and as a conduit for encouraging adherence to mutually held principles of the rule of law, professional integrity and the protection of human rights.

The structure of LAWASIA comprises a Council constituting representatives of all LAWASIA Member Countries including Sri Lanka with a governing Executive Committee elected from among the representatives of the Member Countries.

BASL President Saliya Pieris, PC and BASL Secretary Rajeev Amarasuriya represent Sri Lanka on the LAWASIA Council as the Sri Lanka Councillor and the Alternate Councillor.

Country members of LAWASIA include ; Afghanistan, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, England and Wales, Fiji, Georgia, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Macau SAR, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, United States of America, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.

Amarasuriya commenced his Legal Practice in the Law Chambers of Sanjeeva Jayawardena, PC. He practised law for more than a decade before commencing his own law Chambers. The Executive Committee of LAWASIA for 2021 / 2022 comprises President Melissa K. Pang (Former President of the Law Society of Hong Kong); Immediate Past President Chunghwan Choi (President of the International Association of Korean Lawyers); President Elect Shyam Divan (Senior Advocate from India); Vice President Eric Yang (Managing Partner Bae, Kim & Lee Singapore who is also a former Vice President International Affairs of the Korean Bar Association); Vice President Steven Thiru (Past President of the Malaysian Bar); Vice President Yap Teong Liang (Director, T.L. Yap Law Chambers Singapore) and Members; Rajeev Amarasuriya; Pauline Wright (Immediate Past President of the Law Council of Australia and presently the President of the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties); Yin Baohn (Senior Counsellor of the General Office of the China Law Council); C.M. Chan (President of the Law Society of Hong Kong); Dr. Pinky Anand (Former Additional Solicitor General of India); Toshiro Ueyanagi (Secretary of the Japan Bar Association and Vice Chair of the Kanto Federation of Bar Associations); Angela Y. Lin (Director and Vice Chairperson International Affairs of the Taiwan Bar Association); and Robert Brown (Past Chair, International Section of the American Bar Association).



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SJB MP slams police double standards

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“Why one law for Ponnambalam and another for Gamage?”

The police have failed to display the same efficiency they displayed in arresting Jaffna District MP Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam with regard to arresting State Minister Diana Gamage, who should have been spending her time at the Mirihana Immigration Detention Centre, Kurunegala District SJB MP Nalin Bandara Jayamaha told Parliament on Friday.

“If the police had displayed the same efficacy, Diana Gamage should have been at the Mirihana Detention Centre at this time. Instead she comes to parliament and issues threats to other MPs. The courts have clearly stated that the CID could take her into custody because she had been using two passports.

“The Immigration Controller himself has reported to the courts that she had been a UK citizen since 2004 and using a UK passport since then. She has not revoked her UK citizenship. In addition she has obtained anther passport through the Secretary General of Parliament. The Speaker too should have a responsibility to prevent a foreign citizen sitting unlawfully in the House,” he said.

Jayamaha said that Gamage had no right to sit in parliament. “The case against her regarding her having forged passports is postponed again and again. The law is not implemented. My colleague Mujibur Rahuman tabled a document in this House that the Defence Secretary had been informed of the illegality of Gamage’s presence in Parliament. I tabled the same again today.

“She recently told a TV talk-show that she had applied for the revocation of her UK citizenship. We do not know whether she has two tongues,” the MP said.

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Sarath Weerasekera opposes SLT share sale on security grounds

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Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT), which owns a fixed and mobile telecom group, which is partly foreign owned and listed should not be privatized, the head of a parliamentary committee on national security has said.

Government MP, Retd. Admiral Sarath Weerasekara who chairs the Sectoral Oversight Committee on National Security told parliament Friday that divestment of the 49.5 percent stake in SLT held by the government could “expose the country’s strategic communication infrastructure and sensitive information to private companies that are motivated by profit, which could pose a threat to national security”.

Weerasekara also said that any individual or organization proscribed or otherwise that “aided terrorists or extremists” must not be allowed to purchase shares or control Sri Lanka’s national assets.

The claim comes despite satellite links and international cables connecting the country being built and managed by foreign conglomerates in which many connected countries are also shareholders. SLT is also a shareholder in some global cable companies.

Weerasekara suggested that the government retain the right to repurchase shares held by the majority shareholder of SLT.SLT’s second biggest shareholder, behind the Sri Lanka government, is Malaysia-based Usaha Tegas Sdn Bhd with a 44.9 percents take in the company.

Most Sri Lanka’s mobile firms were also built and owned not just by private firm but foreign ones. SLT’s own mobile network, Mobitel was a build operate transfer project by Australia’s Telstra.

Sri Lanka’s cabinet of ministers in March 2023 listed Sri Lanka Telecom among several state companies to be re-structured.SLT currently enjoys market leadership in fixed-line services and is the second-largest operator in mobile. It also owns an extensive optical fibre network.The company was placed on watch for a possible rating upgrade by Fitch Ratings in March 2023 after the government announced the restructuring. (EconomyNext)

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Cardinal hits out at government demanding local elections

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By Norman Palihawadane

Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has urged the government to hold local elections to secure the democratic rights of the people.

“Voting is a right of the people that we must all enjoy. It is a right that every person over 18 -years of age is entitled to to determine the future of the country,” he said on Thursday.

“Today justice as been turned into injustice, governance to dictatorship and law into lawlessness,” the 75-year-old cardinal told a gathering of hundreds of people at a function at St. Anthony’s College in Kochchikade.

Local polls to elect 340 councils were slated for April 25 but the election commission postponed it, citing a lack of funds.

“The government said earlier that it doesn’t have money to hold an election, now it’s saying that it has money. If the government has the money, please give an opportunity to the people to vote and let the people express their wishes. How much of what came from the IMF was used for agriculture? How much for the fishing industry? And what about education?” the cardinal queried.

Rather than improving the lives of people, “politicians import goods, and bring in what we need and what we don’t need, destroying our economic independence, leading us to depend on foreign countries,” he said.

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