A delegation of the Law Association for Asia and the Pacific (LAWASIA) have been barred from entering the Maldives.
RaajjeMV understands that the high-profile delegation arrived in the Maldives on Sunday evening, and were kept at Velana International Airport for over 10 hours, before they eventually left to Colombo.
The mission included; LAWASIA’s President Christopher Leong; its former President current President-Elect of Bar Association of India, Prashant Kumar; Executive committee member Upul Jayasuriya, President of the Bar Association of Singapore Gregory Vijayendran; a retired Judge of the Court of Appeal of Malaysia, Dato’ Mohamed Ariff Md Yusaf; President of the Law Society of New South Wales, Doug Humphreys; member of Japan Federation of Bar Associations, Professor Yasushi Higashizawa; and solicitor for LAWAISA and member of the Law Society of New South Wales Kate Hewson.
The Immigration Department is yet to reveal the reason for deporting the high-profile mission.
LAWASIA had, back in September 2017, passed a resolution to send a fact-finding mission to the Maldives, following the mass suspension of lawyers. They had made appointments with prominent lawyers in the country as well.
The Department of Judicial Administration had suspended 54 lawyers on the 10th of September 2017, out of the 56 who signed a petition calling for the judiciary's reform (the other two were already under suspension).
