Attorney Rajeev Amarasuriya has been appointed as the Sri Lanka Country Representative of the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA). Founded in 1971, the CLEA is a Commonwealth-wide body with regional Chapters and Committees in South Asia, Southern Africa, West Africa, the Caribbean and the United Kingdom, and fosters and promotes high standards of Legal Education in the Commonwealth.
The goal of the Commonwealth Legal Education Association is to make Legal Education socially relevant and professionally useful, through Conferences, Moots, Newsletters, Lecture Series, Curriculum Development and activities for students.
Amarasuriya is the Immediate Past Secretary of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka and is credited for introducing many innovative and highly successful Continuous Legal Education and Professional Development Programmes during the period of the Pandemic, including 175 publicly accessible Webinars, the introduction of the BASL Online Certificate Courses and many other such initiatives which to-date support the legal fraternity and law students. He is a sitting Member of the Council of the Colombo University, a Board Member of the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Board, an Executive Committee Member of the Law Association for the Asia and Pacific [LAWASIA], a Member of the Standing Committee on Legal Studies of the UGC, among several other offices and positions held.
He has also been a Member of the Council of Legal Education of Sri Lanka, a Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka, a Member of the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Law, Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, a Member, Board of Governors, Sri Lanka National Arbitration Centre and the President, Alumni Association of the University of Colombo. He is also the Founder Editor of the Junior Bar Law Journal launched in 2004 and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka Sinhala Law Journal launched last year.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree with Honours from the Colombo University, is the Gold Medal Winner of the Sri Lanka Law College, is a Fellow Member of CIMA (UK) and CMA Sri Lanka, an AFGG-Raisina Fellow and is reading for his PhD at the Colombo University and has presented many papers at Conferences both Internationally and Nationally.
The Executive Committee of the CLEA comprises; President – Senior Professor (Dr.) S. Sivakumar of the Indian Law Institute; Emeritus President / Immediate Past President – Prof. David MacQuoid-Mason of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, South Africa; Vice Presidents Dr. Peter Slinn of the University of Notre Dame (London Law Centre), Dr. Joe Silva, former Principal Sri Lanka Law College and Prof. John Hatchard Emeritus Professor, University of Buckingham and Professor.
