Rifka Ziyard
COLOMBO: “The last year was a difficult year not only for the Bar Association of Sri Lanka ,not only for the legal profession, not only for Sri Lanka but for the entire world. The learning curve was very steep and we all began to do things differently in the new normal”, said Rajeev Amarasuriya, Secretary of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) delivering his closing remarks at the 47th BASL Convocation held on Saturday 27th March 2021 at the BMICH.
Mr Saliya Pieris, PC was inducted as the 26th President of the BASL at the convocation. Mr Anura Meddegoda, PC was elected as Deputy President. The posts of the Secretary and the Treasurer were uncontested. Mr Rajeev Amarasuriya was appointed for the post of Secretary for his second term and Mr Rajind Perera was appointed to the post of the Treasurer .
Mr Amarasuriya described initiatives carried out by the BASL during the age of new normal, “I am proud to say that the BASL also embraced the changes quite early and began to do things differently. We strengthened our communication channels early into the year and this proved to be a huge success as we have now a very well-connected membership”.
Mr Amarasuriya added “We commenced the webinar programmes originally every Saturday with the English webinar and now also on Tuesdays with the Sinhala webinar series and we have this year now reached out to the entire membership which we could not do this way before. We have completed 60 webinars in the past 10 months and a special feature was that we have had over 200 lawyers as resource persons for these two series”.
He also mentioned that the national law conference was organized in a hybrid form this year and was acclaimed as one of the best.
Further, he explained other initiatives taken by BASL during the Pandemic, “we have so much coordination and new activity due to covid from assisting and supporting members who were infected to securing permission to use the BASL ID card as curfew pass and most recently commencing a vaccination programme and the list goes on”
He shared his gratitude with the past management committee and stated “..overall we have had a very good year and this would not have been possible if not for the excellent management committee we had, the President Mr. Kalinga N. Indatissa, PC, who led the association in two very turbulent years for the country and the world and did his very best to keep the BASL flag flying very high, Deputy President Mr. W. J. S. Fernando, PC, Treasurer Mr. Nalin De Silva and Assistant Secretary Mr. Pasindu Silva, AAL supported and gave leadership to all the initiatives and activities undertaken to the fullest. The executive committee was also very involved and engaged and I thank them very much”.
