06 March 2009

Ambiga Sreenevasen Champions Gender Equality in Malaysia

Bar council president uses rule of law to promote justice for all

Ambiga Sreenevasen of Malaysia

Washington — Malaysian Bar Council President Ambiga Sreenevasen is a high-powered, high-profile advocate for good governance, democracy and human rights.

Elected in March 2007, Ambiga is the second female bar council president in that organization’s history. The council is the 36-member governing body for the Malaysian Bar.

Six months after assuming her leadership, she organized the “March for Justice” in Malaysia’s administrative capital, Putrajaya. She called for judicial reform and an investigation of a tape allegedly showing a key lawyer illegally arranging judicial appointments and case assignments. Her public actions and an intense lobbying campaign led to a royal commission and a finding of need for corrective action.

Ambiga has supported the rule of law consistently during her tenure, condemning the politically motivated arrests of two journalists, a government ban on an ethnic Indian activist group and the arrest of its members.

Her most controversial work is in the areas of religious freedom and women’s rights. She has confronted sexism in Parliament and taken her case directly to the public when necessary.

“Gender equality is a responsibility of all Malaysians,” Ambiga wrote in a press release that protested a politician’s patronizing remarks.

She successfully fought to amend Malaysia’s Federal Constitution to ensure that women’s testimony would carry equal weight to men’s in Shariah courts. She continues to fight for the religious freedom of women who convert to Islam upon marriage. Under current law, these women are not allowed to return to their original religions if the marriage dissolves, regardless of the reason for its termination.

As a result of her attempts to find legal solutions to issues that continue to generate ethnic tensions and constitutional problems, Ambiga has received hate mail and death threats. She has even had a Molotov cocktail thrown at her house. Hundreds of people from religious groups and conservative members of government have protested at the bar council building and called for her arrest.

Nonetheless, Ambiga — in a country with a potentially volatile religious and ethnic mix — has persevered in seeking answers within the rule of law, and worked for Malaysia’s legal and governing structure to be made more transparent, accessible and equitable.

Ambiga’s work has gained recognition in the United States. On March 11 she will be presented with the U.S. secretary of state’s International Women of Courage Award, instituted in 2007 to honor exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for women’s rights and advancement. (See “United States Recognizes Women of Courage.”)