Thirty-three judges from Sri Lanka gathered in CityU — not to adjudicate any legal cases, but to attend the inauguration of the two-week “Short-term Knowledge Sharing Session for Judicial Officers from Sri Lanka”, organized by CityU Professional Services Limited (CPS), 6 to 17 September.

In his welcoming remarks, Mr James Ng, Chief Executive Officer of CPS, said that the Session aimed to provide participants with updated information about Hong Kong’s recent legal developments and to facilitate communication and exchange. Mr Ng added that he looked forward to more collaboration between the Sri Lanka Government and CityU. 

 

Also officiating at the opening ceremony were Professor Peter Malanczuk, Dean of CityU’s School of Law; and Mr Nihal Jayasinghe, Judge of the Supreme Court of the Sri Lanka Judiciary. Participants included the Secretary of the Judiciary Commission of Sri Lanka, and the Director of the Legal and Judiciary Reform Project of the Sri Lankan Government.

 

The Session will develop the concept of “knowledge sharing” to enhance mutually beneficial two-way communication and idea exchange between legal practitioners of Sri Lanka and Hong Kong. “Through meeting with judges, legal practitioners and policemen in Hong Kong,

the participants can understand how Hong Kong’s legal system, and law and civil justice reforms work,” said Professor Anthony Cooray of CityU’s School of Law (SLW), Consultant to the Sri Lankan Government on legal education and Project Manager of the Session.

 

Funded by the International Development Agency, the Session consists of key-note speeches by CityU scholars, including an “Introduction to the Hong Kong Legal System and Use of Technology” by Professor Cooray and “Internet Service Providers’ Liability in Defamation” by Professor D K Srivastava of CityU's SLW; and “Consumer Protection” by Dr S H Ko, Acting Head of Community College of CityU's Division of Commerce.

 

In addition, visits and exchange to the Hong Kong Judiciary, the Commercial Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong Police, the Justice Department’s Commercial Division, and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission will be arranged for the participants.

 

To give the audience an academic outlook, Professor Malanczuk, a leading expert in arbitration, shared with the Sri Lanka Judiciary at the opening ceremony one of his previous publications entitled “Mixing Legal Cultures in International Arbitration – Iran-United States Claims Tribunal”. As he noted, the published decisions of the Tribunal constitute an invaluable collection of materials and jurisprudence on issues of public international law, international commercial law and the procedures of international arbitration—a  resource on the development of the law that is not likely to be surpassed easily in the future.

 

Mr Jayasinghe commended the Session saying, “It helps us understand how the legal system works here; with this knowledge, we can see how well we can adapt Hong Kong’s legal system and apply it in Sri Lanka.”