Ambiga Sreenevasan

Yang Berbahagia Dato' Ambiga Sreenevasan DPMP
அம்பிகா சீனிவாசன்
Ambiga Sreenevasan speaks at the International Women of Courage Awards ceremony in 2009.
24th President of Malaysian Bar Council
In office March 2007 – March 2009
Deputy	Mr. Ragunath Kesavan
Preceded by	Mr. Yeo Yang Poh
Succeeded by	Mr. Ragunath Kesavan
Member of the International Commission of Jurists
Incumbent
Assumed office 2018 Serving with Chinara Aidarbekova (Kyrgyzstan), Gamal Eid (Egypt), Jamesina Essie L. King (Sierra Leone) and Michael Sfard (Israel)
President	Robert K Goldman (USA)
Chairwoman of Bersih 2.0
In office 2011 – 30 November 2013
Preceded by	none
Succeeded by	Maria Chin Abdullah
Chairperson of Bar Council Orang Asli Committee
In office 2010–2012 Co-leading with Steven Thiru on 2011/2012 tenure
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Steven Thiruneelakandan & Hon Kai Ping (Co-chair)
Independent Director of Securities Industry Dispute Resolution Centre
In office 2011–2013
Executive Committee of Women's Aid Organisation
In office 2009–2010
President of National Human Rights Society (HAKAM)
Incumbent
Assumed office 2014
Preceded by	Mr. Abdul Rashid Ismail
Member of Committee on Institutional Reforms
Incumbent
Assumed office 15 May 2018
Appointed by	Council of Elders
Prime Minister	Mahathir Mohamad
Personal details
Born	(1956-11-13) 13 November 1956 (age 68) Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia)
Spouse	Mr. S. Radhakrishnan (grandson of S. S. Vasan)
Alma mater	University of Exeter, England
Occupation	Lawyer
Award(s)	Darjah Dato' Paduka Mahkota Perak (DPMP), 2008[1]
International Women of Courage Award, 2009
Honorary Graduate of University of Exeter, 2011–12
Honorary Doctorate in Law (LLD) of University of Exeter, 2011
Legion of Honour, 23 September 2011[2][3]

Ambiga Sreenevasan with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama

Ambiga Sreenevasan (Tamil: அம்பிகா சீனிவாசன், romanized: Ampikā cīṉivācaṉ; born 1956) is a prominent Malaysian lawyer and human rights advocate, and one of eight recipients of the US International Women of Courage Award in 2009. She was the president of the Malaysian Bar Council from 2007 to 2009, and co-chairperson of Bersih, an NGO coalition advocating for free and fair elections.

She previously served in the executive committee of the Women's Aid Organisation as well as in the Bar Council Special Committee on the rights of the indigenous Orang Asli people. She is a director of the Securities Industry Dispute Resolution Centre, and has been involved in the preparation and presentation of papers and memoranda on issues relating to the rule of law, the judiciary, the administration of justice, legal aid, religious conversion, and other human rights issues.

As former president of the Malaysian Bar, she played a significant role in the establishing of a panel of eminent persons, together with LAWASIA, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute and Transparency International-Malaysia in the year 2008. This panel reviewed the judicial crisis of 1988 and issued a report which was the first of its kind, setting an important precedent for organisations to establish their own panel inquiring into abuses of power.^[4]

In July 2011, she received an honorary Doctorate in Law (LLD) from the University of Exeter.^[5]

Education, entry into law

Sreenevasan attended Convent Bukit Nanas in Kuala Lumpur, where she also served as head prefect in 1975. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of Exeter^[6] in 1979, and was called to the English Bar at Gray's Inn in 1980. After working in two London law firms, she was admitted to the Malaysian Bar in 1982.^[7]

Career

Sreenevasan has been a practising advocate and solicitor since March 1982. She is a founding partner of Sreenevasan, Advocates & Solicitors.^[8] She had served as the president of Hakam, Malaysia's National Human Rights Society.^[9]

Malaysian Bar Council President 2007 – 2009

Elected in March 2007, Sreenevasan is the second woman to serve as president of the Bar Council. Six months after assuming her leadership, she organised the "March for Justice," in Malaysia's administrative capital, calling for judicial reform and the investigation of a videotape allegedly showing a key lawyer fixing judicial appointments and judges' case assignments. Her public actions, and an intense lobbying campaign, led to the formation of a Royal Commission, which called for corrective action.

As a result of her attempts to resolve issues that continue to generate inter-ethnic tensions and constitutional problems, Sreenevasan received hate mail, death threats, and had a Molotov cocktail thrown at her house. Hundreds of people from religious groups and conservative members of government protested at the Bar Council building and called for her arrest.^[10]

In 2008, as President of the Malaysian Bar she played a significant role in the establishing, in collaboration with LAWASIA, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute and Transparency International-Malaysia, of a panel to review the judicial crisis of 1998. The panel issued a report that was the first of its kind, setting a precedent for the establishment of panels to inquire into abuses of power.^[11]

Bersih 2.0 rally

Sreenevasan chaired Bersih 2.0, the organisation behind the July 2011 rally in Kuala Lumpur that drew 20,000 people.^[12] She summed up the main issues raised by Bersih as "unhappiness... in the Sarawak [election], unhappiness about corruption, [and] unhappiness about the lack of independence of our institutions."^[13] She said demands made during the first rally in 2007 have not been addressed, hence the follow-up rally.^[14]

Sreenevasan later said that the rally "exploded many myths" in Malaysia, including the notion that people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds could not work together and that the middle class was "too comfortable to step up to the plate."^[12]

On September 21, 2012, Malaysia's New Straits Times published "Plot to destabilize government," which accused Bersih and other nongovernment organizations of plotting a conspiracy to destabilise the government using foreign funding.^[15][16] Sreenevasan and fellow Bersih organizers filed for defamation, which resulted in High Court Justice Lee Heng Cheong ordering the New Straits Times Press (NSTP) to pay damages to the plaintiffs.^[16][17] NSTP also issued an apology admitting the article was "false and without foundation."^[16][17]

Dato Ambiga was appointed to the International Commission of Jurists in 2018.^[18]

Memberships

She is a member of the Malaysian Intellectual Property Association and was its vice president in 2002.^[8] She is also a member of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI). She headed Bersih 2.0, also called Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, a citizen's movement for free and fair elections.^{[19][20][21][22]} In 2015, she led the Bersih 3.0 rally.^[23][24][25]

Honours

•  Perak :
  • Knight Commander of the Order of the Perak State Crown (DPMP) – Dato' (2008)

Foreign honours

•  France :
  • Knight of the Legion of Honour (2011)

References

1. Perak honours list Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
2. "Bersih's Ambiga receives top French award". Malaysia: Malaysiakini.com. 24 September 2011. Archived from the original on 26 September 2011. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
3. "Conferment of the insignia of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour to Dato Ambiga Sreenevasan". Embassy of France in Malaysia. Archived from the original on 28 July 2012. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
4. "Ambiga Sreenevasan – Honorary Graduates – University of Exeter". Retrieved 20 February 2014.
5. "Ambiga to be conferred doctor of law by UK varsity". themalaysianinsider.com. Archived from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
6. "A Reluctant Symbol for Electoral Reform in Malaysia". International Herald Tribune. 9 August 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2016 – via The New York Times.
7. "Ambiga Sreenevasan". Archived from the original on 21 September 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2014.
8. "Ambiga Sreenevasan | Speakers | Oslo Freedom Forum". Oslo Freedom Forum. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
9. "Malaysia's Many Scandals". The New York Times. 21 August 2015. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
10. "Ambiga Sreenevasan: "Gender Equality Is a Responsibility for All Malaysians"". DipNote.
11. Ambiga Sreenevasan As President of Malaysian Bar. July 22, 2011 Archived 29 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine
12. Pooch, Liz (8 August 2011). "A Reluctant Symbol for Electoral Reform in Malaysia". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 August 2011.
13. Boo, Su-Lyn (12 June 2011). "Bersih rally goes on, says Ambiga, PAS". The Malaysian Insider. Archived from the original on 13 June 2011. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
14. Boo, Su-Lyn (12 June 2011). "Ambiga asks politicians to join Bersih rally". The Malaysian Insider. Archived from the original on 13 June 2011. Retrieved 13 June 2011.
15. Chu, Mei Mei (14 November 2013). "Malaysia's Oldest Newspaper Is Sorry For Baseless Article On Destabilising The Govt". Says. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
16. Lim, Ida (13 November 2013). "NSTP tenders apology to end Bersih libel suit". Malay Mail. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
17. Nazlina, Maizatul (13 November 2013). "NSTP, reporter apologise to Ambiga and Bersih 2.0 over defamatory article". Star. Archived from the original on 25 May 2018. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
18. "Former Bar chief Ambiga appointed to International Commission of Jurists | Malay Mail". Retrieved 29 July 2018.
19. Hite, Brittany. "Q&A: Malaysia's Ambiga Sreenevasan". WSJ. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
20. "Who else but Bersih 2.0 has been slapped with city clean-up bill? Ambiga asks Putrajaya". Malay Mail. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
21. "Police's teargas on Bersih 3.0 crowd was 'reasonable force', court told". Malay Mail. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
22. "Lawmakers Recommend Changes to Malaysian Electoral System". International Herald Tribune. 4 April 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2016 – via The New York Times.
23. "Ambiga denies losing control of Bersih 3.0 crowd". Malaysiakini. 6 December 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
24. "Ambiga: 'Bersih 3.0' necessary if electoral reforms fail". The Malaysian Insider. Archived from the original on 4 February 2016. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
25. "Malaysian cops to question rights activist Ambiga Sreenevasan Friday over alleged 'threat' of street rallies". The Straits Times. 30 July 2015. Retrieved 3 February 2016.