Let’s Awake From The Fearful Palsy Fallen Upon The People

By Upul Jayasuriya -April 1, 2014

Upul Jayasuriya -BASL President

As I rise before this august assembly for the second time since my last convocation having been re-elected. As the President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka It is my pride and privilege to place before you some of our achievements and state the way forward in the ensuing year with reference to the issues that we are encountering as the Bar in Sri Lanka.

As you may be aware, the year 2013 will go down in the annals of the BASL given the numerous projects that were added on to its calendar.

The Manupatra Website was introduced free of charge to the BASL membership granting access to over 1 Million judgments including Federal and Supreme Court judgments of India as well as Federal Supreme court judgments in the US and House of Lords judgments in the UK. This would have otherwise cost US$ 550/- per member.

In addition over 24 Seminars have been held in almost every High Court jurisdiction in the past year and will be repeated in the year 2014.

For the first time, the National Law Conference was held over 3 days at Hotel Kandalama,

The first-ever National Labour Conference will be held spanning over two days at the Hotel Cinnamon Lakeside in May 2014.

Further, we have commenced the refurbishment of the BASL Auditorium at a cost of Rs. 9 Million out of which a substantial part of it, is funded by the family of the late Dr. HW Jayawardena the 1^st President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. This auditorium will be named in memory of late Dr. Jayawardena after completion.

We will be refurbishing and developing the Colombo Law Library which is more than two centuries old at a cost of nearly Rs.6 million.                                                            Read More