Sunday Times 2

Thomas Skinner, the pioneer road builder in many parts of the Island who had closely associated with the villagers testifying before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1849 had remarked: “Probably in no people in the world does there exist a great a love of litigation as in the Sinhalese. It is much encouraged by, if it does not altogether owe its existence to, the state of their law of inheritances by the result of which property has become so subdivided that that 120th share of a field, or 99th share of small garden becomes the fruitful source of legal contention. With their own government, the result of an appeal to law depended less upon the merits of the case in dispute than upon the relative means and inclinations of the parties to pay for a favourable decision, hence, a law-suit was too frequently the corrupt instrument of revenge in the hands of the rich and powerful, where no better means of indulging a vindictive spirit of animosity or tyranny presented itself. Witness can even in these days, be obtained for evidence of any character. Perjury is made so complete a business, that cases are regularly rehearsed in all their various scenes by the professional perjurer as a dramatic piece at a theatre.”

This trait in us in lies and believing in lies has increased in geometric progression that we ignore the basic tenets of criminal law that the benefit of doubt should be given to the accused and not the prosecution. As inevitably we tend to convict an accused on lies and damn lies, uttered by witnesses with such consummate skill, it is an onerous task to separate the grain from the chaff.

It is a well-known fact that our nation is within the first five countries where the rate of crime is at the highest. Similarly, we fall only second to the Russians in our thirst to gobble liquor. Though no relative index is maintained, we would be numero uno in the world for lying without any compunction. We love to lie. We live to lie. Even in death we lie. If you listen to the sermons delivered by Buddhist priests at funerals, then we realise that others lie the most when we die.

This trait of habitual lying was first noticed by Robert Knox. Though I cannot place the passage and I am subject to correction, Knox mentioned how we lie with a pleasant countenance. In courts, we experience this every day. The witnesses lie without any reservations. Most Buddhists do not have to take oath, upon a religious book, to speak the truth. There is no Bible or Quran. Therefore, there is no fear in being burnt eternally in hell. Even if there was a Holy Book, the Sinhala Buddhists would not hesitate to lie as this is part of their upbringing and culture. From the time we were born, we were surrounded by parents, who, without batting an eyelid, lied to us to make us stop crying. Then when a toddler, they lied to prevent us from sneaking into the garden. They put the fear of Moses in you when they talk about ‘gonibillas’ and ‘yakkas’. So, like the food chain and the Dharma Chakra, the ‘Lie Chakra’ goes on.

When you become a student you know how cunningly your parents had tendered forged documents, deeds and sometimes forged certificates, to get you admitted into an important school in the City. You are supposed to live within a certain proximity to school but you actually live a quite a few miles away and if one goes to my old school, Royal College, you could see that the majority of children travel by school vans from distant places. You accept this as reality and you love and venerate the parents who had cheated on behalf of you.

When I just entered the profession as a junior counsel, I was retained by a man who had stolen a goat. This man swore upon his child, who was an infant, saying that this was a false case by his neighbour, as he was jealous that he had come back from the Middle-East with few electronic gadgets. Those days, a mere radio set up was considered a status symbol.

The Judge, who was as usual, unkind to junior lawyers, forced me to tender a plea of guilt. My client refused. The trial began; the complainant described how he tied the goat in the compound and also described the identification marks branded on the goat. Later, he identified the skin that was discovered by the police, but said he had not seen who had stolen the goat. Then came another witness. A bespectacled, middle-aged, respectable looking man described how he saw my client untying the knot from the fence and leading the goat to the place where the skin was found.

I was shocked. I quietly went near the accused and asked him about what he had to say about that evidence. He said, this man is well known in the village as a professional witness. Then I asked him why he did not tell that to me in advance. He said, he knew him as ‘Boka’, but did not know his real name. I asked why was he called ‘Boka’, he said it was a shortened form for ‘Boru Kapitan’. With the new found material, I cross examined him. I asked him whether he gave evidence in any other case before this. He said never. He had never stepped into a Court House. Then, I asked him whether he was known as ‘Boka’. He looked puzzled and looked at me and said, that there was a person called Boka in the village who was a professional witness.

I tried my best to make even a slight dent in the evidence given by this man. He was so calm and cool that even I began to suspect my client. He was so convincing. Later, they called the police, who produced a part of the confession of my client, which led to the recovery of the goat skin. The accused made a dock statement and to the elation of the seniors, who were not happy with the manner in which I had conducted the case; the Magistrate convicted my client and remanded him. His family members cried and cursed me for doing a bad job. After two weeks, on the day of sentencing, they had retained a senior lawyer, and to the great happiness of the accused, relatives and the senior lawyers, the accused was given a suspended term of imprisonment. The judge had said, addressing the accused, that he must thank his stars that they retained an able counsel who pleaded extremely well in mitigation, otherwise he would have definitely sentenced him to the maximum imprisonment of two years. But a friend of mine told me that the senior counsel did not utter a word other than to say in litigation that the accused was married and having a child.

A few years later I was retained by a man who claimed his gold chain had been stolen. A witness had identified the man who stole the chain but the police had failed to recover the chain. I told him that it would be difficult to prove the case as the chain was not found. Then he said he had got a reliable witness who had seen the suspect taking the gold chain from the windowsill of the public bath. That was where my client had gone for a bath.

I told him to bring the witness to my chambers. When the witness entered my room I hit the ceiling. It was “Boka”. Then I questioned Boka in detail the manner in which the suspect took the chain. The complainant had said that he had left the gold chain on the windowsill. No one would have seen the chain from outside. Then the entire scenario of the ‘goat theft’ went through my mind. Then I shouted at him saying, “You are a liar and a professional witness hired by the complainant to commit perjury”. Boka started trembling. Then I told him to tell me the truth. “Who stole the goat? You remember the case very well.”

He worshipped me and asked me not to divulge this to anyone, especially the police. I asked him again who stole the goat. He said, “I and a friend of mine sir. We slaughtered the goat and the meat was sold to the local butcher.”
I asked him, “How did the police find the carcass?”

“I led the police to the place where I had hidden the carcass,” he said.

“Then why did you accuse my client of committing the theft?” I asked.

He said it was to vindicate an old grudge his family had with my client.

I called my client and told him to retain another lawyer. By the next trial date Boka had left the village and the suspect was discharged. If not for this episode, Boka’s testimony would have been accepted by Court without a murmur and an innocent man would have gone to jail.

Later, I found that Boka had been a professional witness in many cases; and that if he had to give evidence before the magistrate once, he would avoid that court like a plague. Even if the suspect was discharged he would charge an additional fee and tell the police to file another case and by that time, that Magistrate would have been transferred. Some unscrupulous police officers found Boka to be a helpful person. When they want to fix a person and cannot do that for want of evidence Boka would be their Saviour. So as someone remarked, we are a nation of liars, damn liars and the gullible. We only have to start a rumour and the whole nation would believe it as the absolute truth.