Ambiga Sreenevasan

Who is Ambiga Sreenevasan?

Dato' Ambiga Sreenevasan is a prominent Malaysian lawyer and human rights advocate, and is one of the eight recipients of the US International Women of Courage Award in 2009. She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Exeter in 1979, and was was called to the English Bar at Gray’s Inn in 1980. After having worked in two London law firms, she was subsequently admitted to the Malaysian Bar in 1982. She formerly served as the President of the Malaysian Bar Council from 2007 to 2009, and is currently co-chairperson of Bersih, an NGO Coalition advocating for free and fair elections. In 2011, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Law by the University of Exeter.

She currently serves on the executive committee of the Women’s Aid Organisation and is involved in the Bar Council Special Committee on the Orang Asli rights. She is a Director of the Securities Industry Dispute Resolution Centre. She has been involved in the drafting and presenting of several 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 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.