Rajpal's Column

7th January 2001

Those days, there was a body of professional legal men

By Rajpal Abeynayake

Hear ye all, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka is coming forward in the defence of the independence of the judiciary. The devil quoteth scripture! The doratupalaya who connived in the sacking of the temple, is shedding copious tears about the "desecration of the sacred.''

For imagined gravi-tas, the Bar Association takes the Oscar and the Sarasavi Sammanaya too. The Bar Association, in its missive about a newspapers alleged insinuations about the integrity of the Judicial Services Commission, is engaging in nursery school role playing .

The Association is acting upon the premise that it is a prestigious institution that is taken seriously as a civic conscious professional body. The Bar Association did have such a reputation, but that was in a different distant epoch.

First the Bar Association was politicized. Then it was neutralized. Now, it has been taken over by the nouveau riche establsihmentists whose only politics is the politics of self.

Many professional associations in Sri Lanka went in similar directions, notably the institute of Cost and Management Accountants, Sri Lanka branch. But, in this instance, a bunch of young accountants banded together, and bucked the system, at least to some credible courageous extent. Family bandyism and takeover by a husband - wife team was thwarted by young accountants who had some measure of fight left in them after the association had been pummelled into submission by vested interests.

In the Bar Association, the sense of hierarchy borders on the slavish. For one, it's due to the nature of the legal profession, where the seniors are a ticket to professional advancement. Ingratiating with the senior is supposed to the best route to professional climbing.

In this atmosphere , few young lawyers with any sense of integrity and principle left in them , have wanted to come out and buck the system. That's ironic, because accountants are supposed to be boring, and yet they have stood up for themselves at least upto some extent.

Lawyers who are typecast as firebrands, and angry young men with talent and a gift of the gab haven't . There is not a hint of rebelliousness among the lawyers when the Bar Association is being run like a Haralak-shaya Turf Club.

Not a whimper was raised by the President of the Ex- co of the Bar Association, when grand transgressions of the independence of the judiciary took place in this country. The Bar Association par-tied, while Hulftsdorp burned when it was being put to the torch by the Executive branch of the state. The UN rapporteur for the independence of the judiciary said "your judicial system is being made a farce of, '' and Bar Association responded right there, with a deafening silence.

But, it's a mistake to think that only the Bar Association was culpable in making a conspicuous midget of itself. Senior professionals colluded by their silence. PC's were worse than police constables in their dereliction of duty.

The whole profession seemed to be, and seems yet to be players in a vast conspiracy of self-serving silence.

Yet, as Mark Antony said, these are honour-ble men.

They stand, ostensibly in global parleys and fora for human rights. Judges among them speak for the independence of the judiciary, but the moment the independence of the judiciary is violated, they run to the Executive's appointed agent. Lawyers, they said, like Arabs, lived on dates. Now they live on plums of office.

For those of you saying that the system is corrupt and mercenary (not the legal system, but the system of contemporary social values and mores) there is also one important qualifier. The system has been taken over by vested interests and the hustlers. Damn right.

But, all professions seem to harbour some redeeming individuals. The legal profession doesn't have that amount of redemption either. Maybe there are five, maybe three mavericks, who are considered eccentric as hatters by the profession's movers.

So, black-coat-edness is intertwined with the pursuit of money, and Hulftsdorp is Chicago without Al Capone.

But, at least a respectable Bar Association, which cannot stand up for the real transgressions of the independence of the judiciary, should shut up the way they put up. But, when the powers that be who can confer office and plums are hurt, the Bar Association finds its voice. It's not only just an erring lot. It's a spineless lot, and also an ingratiating lot.

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