The Deshamanya Dr. R.K.W. Goonesekere Memorial Lecture was held at the Open University of Sri Lanka, with the participation of former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, City Planning Minister Rauff Hakeem, recently.
Justice Prasanna Jayawardena was the chief guest and Professor Erik Jensen (USA), delivered the memorial oration.
A graduate of the Law Faculty of the Colombo University, Dr. Goonesekere was a legal scholar and lawyer of eminence. He served as Senior Lecturer in Law at the Universities of Ceylon in Peradeniya and was later appointed Chancellor of the same university in 2002. He was one-time principal of the Sri Lanka Law College (1966 – 1974) and was an Associate Professor of Law at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria (1978 – 1982).As a scholar and a teacher, he was one of the leading legal academics and practitioners of the Sri Lankan Bar. Dr. Goonesekere was popular among his students as an inspiring, intellectually-stimulating teacher and a scholar recognised for carrying his knowledge and wisdom with humility. He was known to be a teacher with an easy grasp of complicated issues of the law.
Dr. Gooneskere held many positions locally and internationally. He was a member of the Law Commission, Sri Lanka expert member of the UN Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (1998 – 2001), member of the UN Sub-Commission's Working Committee on Discrimination, founder member and Chairman of the Civil rights Movement of Sri Lanka, and Chairman of Law and Society Trust (2007 – 2014).
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