RP to Host ASEAN Justices, Lawyers Meeting
Posted: December 15, 2009
By Jay B. Rempillo
Top Judiciary officials, including two Chief Justices, and legal luminaries of the eight member nations of the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] ASEAN Law Association (ALA) will be in the country from February 17-21 for a series of activities in line with the ALA Philippines 30th Anniversary celebrations, culminating in the ALA’s 32nd Governing Council Meeting at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel, Makati City on February 20.
Philippine Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, concurrent ALA Philippine National Committee Chair, leads the country’s delegation. Other delegation heads are Chief Justice Dato Seri Paduka Hj. Kifrawi bin Kifli of Brunei, Chief Justice Sobchok Sukharomna of Thailand, Justice Dato Hashim Yusoff of Malaysia, Justice Lee Seiu Kin of Singapore, Prof. Dr. Djenal Sidik Suraputra, SH of Indonesia, and Chair Tran Dai Hung of ALA Vietnam. Lao PDR will also send representatives. All in all, participants include justices, judges, law teachers, law practitioners, and government lawyers from the ALA member nations.
Also marking ALA Philippines’ pearl (30th) anniversary is the holding of the Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno Distinguished Lecture Series on February 19 at the En Banc Session Hall, New Supreme Court Building in Padre Faura, Manila. The lecture will feature ASEAN Ambassador Rosario Manalo, who will talk on the ASEAN Charter. The panel of reactors will include ALA Philippines President and [Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz] ACCRA founding partner Avelino V. Cruz, European Commission to the Philippines delegation head Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, Singapore deputy solicitor-general Jeffrey Chan Wah Teck, and retired SC Senior Justice Leonardo A. Quisumbing.
On same date, February 19, an anniversary concert will be held at the Ayala Museum. A day before or on February 18, a golf tournament will be held at the Tagaytay Midlands Golf Club with former Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos as special guest.
It will be the 7th time that the Governing Council meeting will be held in the country. Previously, the meeting has been held in Tagaytay City (1983), Cebu City (1985, 1994), and Manila (1988, 1992, 2005).
Manila was chosen anew as the venue for the Governing Council Meeting during the 31st ALA Governing Council Meeting held on October 16, 2009 in Sheraton Hanoi, Vietnam in conjunction with ALA’s 10th General Assembly. The said meeting was attended by delegates from eight National Committees, namely, Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
In the same meeting, ALA delegates agreed to hold the 11th General Assembly in Indonesia in 2012. The delegates also agreed to the setting up of a working group, comprising a representative and an alternate representative from each ALA member country, to explore and make recommendations on how ALA, as an entity associated with ASEAN, could work with the ASEAN Secretariat in the future.
The Governing Council Meeting in Manila would follow-through the status of what had been agreed upon in the Hanoi meeting. The Manila meeting will also be a planning session for future activities and projects of the ALA delegates with focus on the ASEAN Charter.
Formed in 1979 in Jakarta, Indonesia, ALA, among others, aims to promote close relations, cooperation, and mutual understanding amongst lawyers in the ASEAN countries and to provide organizational facilities for ASEAN cooperation in conflict avoidance, in the arbitration or resolution of legal disputes in transnational contracts within the ASEAN region.
Two Filipinos are among the past presidents of ALA, namely, Senator J. Angara (1980-1982), the very first ALA President, and the late Chief Justice Marcelo B. Fernan (1992-1995). The incumbent ALA President is Mr. Pham Quoc Anh, National Assembly member for Dong Nai province and Chair of the Vietnam Lawyers Association.
Email report source:
From: pio@sc.judiciary.gov.ph
to: lcmlaw@gmail.com
date Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 12:27 PM
subject : RP to Host ASEAN Justices, Lawyers Meeting
