ANC commences LLM and MBA programs

by Dr. Dayanath Jayasuriya, PC

ANC recently launched its School of Postgraduate Education. This was on the eve of its tenth year of existence as one of the country's leading providers of private eduction. The Vice Chancellor of the University of West London and the head of the Ealing Law School were here to enter into a partnership with ANC to commence the Master of Laws and the Master of Business administration programs. It was over one hundred and fifty years ago, that the Introduction of Law of England Ordinance No. 5 of 1852 (commonly known as the Civil Law Ordinance) was enacted, introducing English law as the law applicable to most commercial matters.

Two well-known commentators on South African law (Hahlo and Khan) have expressed in graphic terms the introduction of English law into South Africa and their observations apply to Sri Lanka as well.

“Some English institutions marched into our law openly along the highway of legislative enactment, to the sound of brass bands of Royal Commissions and public discussion. Others slipped into it quietly and unobtrusively alongside roads and by paths.”

Justice Tambiah in Silva v. Johanis Appuhamy 67 NLR 457 cited the above passage with approval and said: “The English Law governing certain topics on Mercantile Law was bodily introduced into Ceylon by statute law. There are other statutes which are either replicas or close imitations of English Statutes. In interpreting statutes, naturally, English decisions have to be resorted to”. He also cited with approval a statement of Sir John Wessels (1920 S.A.L.R. 265) regarding the Cape Province in South Africa which he thought was equally true of Sri Lanka:

“Roman Dutch Law has influenced the English Law for more than people think. Sometimes inroads have been open and overwhelming as when the English Law of evidence was introduced by legislation, first at the Cape and afterwards throughout the whole of South Africa, and at other times English legal ideas have crept in insidiously as if it were almost by accident,” he said.