Suri Ratnapala
Suri Ratnapala is an Australian academic. He is Emeritus Professor of Public Law of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.Biography
Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Suri Ratnapala attended the Royal College, Colombo and the University of Colombo, where he gained his first law degree. His father Amaradasa Ratnapala was a medical doctor of repute, a brilliant schoolboy cricketer, a member of Parliament and renowned scholar of Buddhist Philosophy, whose book on Abhidharmartha Pradeepeka is a highly regarded commentary on the doctrine. His mother Ancy Samarasinha was member of a prominent family in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. Ratnapala is married to Rusri, née Gunasekera a member of a prominent Colombo family. Their son Dr Adrian Ratnapala is a scientist working Germany.
Ratnapala served as a Senior State Counsel, and represented the Sri Lankan State in landmark constitutional cases. He migrated to Australia in 1983. In 1988 he was appointed as Lecturer at the T C Beirne School of Law and, in 2001, was appointed to the Chair of Public Law. He retired at the end of 2014 and was appointed Emeritus Professor.
In 1990, his book Welfare State or Constitutional State? was awarded a Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Prize by a panel chaired by James Buchanan. In 2000, he received a John Templeton Foundation award for inter-disciplinary teaching spanning legal, political, economic and social theory. In 2003 he was awarded a Centenary of Australian Federation Medal for his contribution to Australian society through research in law and economics. He is a Fellow of the International Centre for Economic Research and a Visiting Fellow of the Social Philosophy and Policy Centre at the Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Council of the Centre for Independent Studies. He has been a member of the Mont Pelerin Society since 1998.
