Our People

Mr Ariya Sriharan Senior and Managing Partner

Admitted as an Attorney at Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 1978.
Enrolled as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England & Wales in 1983.

Accredited as a Senior Advisor and also as a Supervisor by the Immigration & Asylum Accreditation scheme conducted by the Law Society and by the Legal Service Commission.
Nominated Senior Advisor and Supervisor in the Fast Track regime at Harmondsworth and Yarlswood detention centres maintained by the Home Office.

Since 1987 Ariya Sriharan has had many historic successes in the legal profession. Many celebrated cases in the field of Immigration and Administrative Law became reported cases. Notable among these is Sivakumaran and others in the House of Lords. This case also created precedence in that the UNHCR for the first time intervened as a party to the case and funded their own legal Representation. This case is still used as the main guideline on the question of "standard of proof" in Asylum cases. Mr Sriharan was one of the conducting solicitors in this case. Another case known as “Thirukumar and others” was successful in the Court of Appeal and re-established the principle of "legitimate expectation". This Judgement made Home Office Asylum Directorate introduce the Political Asylum Questionnaire for self-completion by the Asylum seeker.

Other cases such as “Sureshkumar” reported in the Immigration Law Reports gave guidelines on the question of bail. Due to the large number of judicial review cases being conducted in the Queens Bench Division, the Law Project became interested in the firm and in the test cases. Mr Sriharan was invited to attend the Public Law Commission Conference held in Robinson College in Cambridge University in 1993 in a documentary prepared and telecasted by the BBC in 1987 in the series “Heart of the Matter”, Mr Sriharan was interviewed by Ms Helena Kenady Q.C. along with the former Home Secretary Mr David Waddington, Ms Helen Bamber Managing Director of Medical Foundation and few other jurists. This was an educational programme on the treatment and representation on Asylum policy in the United Kingdom.

Mr Ariya Sriharan served in the Executive Committee in the Middlesex Law Society since 1998. After serving as a Vice President of the Society he was also unanimously elected as the President of the Middlesex Law Society. During his tenure as a President he uplifted the social events of the society. Mr Sriharan has also has been a campaigner for Human Rights and has devoted a lot of his time and resources to charitable work.

The following are few of his profiles.

• Served as the President of Heartly College Past Pupils Association in the UK.
• Served as the President and is still a member of the General Council of SCOT (Standing Committee Of Tamil speaking people), which is a registered charity in the UK with the main objective of eliminating poverty, relief and rehabilitation in Sri Lanka.
• Current member of the executive committee of the Middlesex Law society.
• Won Gold Medal in Address to the Jury contest and had served in the debating team for three years in Sri Lanka Law College. He is also a naturally talented orator in the Tamil and English language.
  

Mr Sriharan is a strong believer of Legal Aid practice. He is still actively conducting Asylum, Immigration and Human Right cases in the High Court, Court of Appeal, House of Lords and in the European Court of Human Rights. Due to his active legal practice in the Immigration and Human Right Law for the last Twenty-Four years he has won the admiration of many thousands of people from various ethnicities and nationalities such as Tamils, Sinhalese, Afghanis, Nigerians, Nepalese, Chinese Muslims and Sikhs. Mr Sriharan further contributes to the provision of legal justice by carrying out pro bono work subject to means and merits tests.