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On 6 April 2009, the Australian Deputy High Commissioner, His Excellency Craig Chittick OAM paid a courtesy call on the Bar Council.  He was received by the Malaysian Bar President, Ragunath Kesavan and Vice-President Lim Chee Wee. 

H.E. Craig holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of Sydney and a Masters of Arts (majoring in international relations and international security) from the Australian National University. 

To many Australians, H.E. Craig is best known “for service through providing assistance and support to key Australian authorities and agencies in response to the Bali bombings” for which he received the Medal of Order of Australia (OAM) on 17 October 2003.  H.E. Craig has served in various capacities in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and has been Australia’s Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia since September 2008.

After a preliminary discussion, H.E. Craig together with Ragunath Kesavan paid a visit to the Kuala Lumpur Legal Aid Centre in Wisma Kraftangan.  They were met by the Chairperson of the KL Bar Anand Ponnudurai, Executive Secretary of the KL Bar, Mary Tan, Chairperson of the Legal Aid Centre, Ravinder Singh and Hon. Secretary of the Legal Aid Centre, Fadiah Nadwa Fikri.  H.E. Craig was given a briefing of the Legal Aid scheme and the programs run by the centre in Kuala Lumpur by Stephanie Bastian, the Legal Aid Centre’s Executive Director.  She reported that the Legal Aid Centre in Kuala Lumpur had a total of 550 volunteer lawyers and in 2008 had served a total of 16,572 clients. 

Ravinder Singh pointed out the importance of greater government involvement in the provision of legal aid and Ragunath Kesavan spoke about how important legal aid was to ensuring access to justice for marginalised groups particularly migrants and refugees. 

The courtesy call ended with a light lunch and further discussions at the Conference Room of the Kuala Lumpur Bar.