By Fr J.C. Pieris –

Everybody knows but nobody speaks of the real reason for the backlogs of court cases in Sri Lanka. I put this whole affair in a nutshell and put it as a comment in many videos of youtubers dealing with BASL matters. But often it gets deleted. I do not know why. Here is that comment.

“I have a question to ask from the BASL Why don’t you issue a receipt for the fees you charge the clients? Having no records of income can be a way of money laundering; ask any Dealdasa. A simple suggestion for the future. All civil cases must be concluded in six months max. Otherwise the judge will be taken to task. Similarly, criminal cases must be concluded within one year. Then dates will be only for camels ……”

Dates, dates and dates; they are the real reason for 1.1 million current court cases. The only solution is what I suggested in that comment: All civil cases must be concluded in six months max. Otherwise the judge will be taken to task. Similarly, criminal cases must be concluded within one year. The time frame can be discussed and the optimum one adopted. But there MUST be a time frame, within which the case must be closed.

About the judiciary this is the big complaint I have. That is, no lawyer in this country gives his/her client valid receipts for the money they receive as fees from their clients. (Law firms give receipts for money received but only a tiny wealthy minority and big businesses can afford to retain law firms.) Every trader, businessman, serviceman and even the small tea shop owner, gives a receipt with his rubber seal on it. Only the cobblers sitting cross legged on the pavement can get away with not giving a receipt.  But the lawyers get away with it. how convenient! What are the Inland Revenue people or the Income Tax officers doing about this anomaly?

The second complaint has many jokes connected to it. What do the lawyers and camels have in common? Dates! Here’s another. The old proctor has handed over his practice to his just passed out lawyer son and is relaxing in his easy chair with his legs up and a shot of the old stuff by the side. The son returns from the courts all jubilant and says: Daddy, I won and finished that old case that was going on for years. And the old man retorts: Idiot, it is that case which paid for this house gave your sister in marriage and educated you through the Law Collage, and you go and finish it!

Laugh if you want to but the jokes expose the true and ugly reality as it is. It is the crudest form of exploitation and extortion. When they postpone a case and get a new date for it, they charge you. They charge you for procrastinating and not doing their job. They have no fixed fee. They do not give a receipt. They can go on doing this for years. Sometimes they go on till the client goes bankrupt. Sometimes the client dies and the next generation goes on paying for new dates. They are heartless. The butchers in the abattoir are kinder. Once when a poor lady could not find the full amount demanded by the (lady) lawyer for getting a new date for the case, she snatched the chain off the poor client’s neck.  They are shameless Shylocks. The judge hearing about it ordered her to return it. Thirty years ago, a certain leading lawyer in Colombo, now deceased, would not even talk to you when you go for a consultation until you place Rs. 25,000/= on the table. Of course, no receipt was ever given to anybody.

Here is a good example of a case now being heard; it is a land dispute. I narrated the defender’s story in an article written in 2018. “It is now twenty-five years old and God only knows when it will conclude. The defender, the father of the family passed away five years ago. Now the mother who is ill has to continue it. Actually, the daughter is doing everything. On the average there are five hearings a year. Two lawyers are appearing for them. When the senior lawyers appear they have to pay him more than double what they pay to the junior. Calculating roughly the average per hearing; they have so far spent over one million including the expenses of surveying the land. Forget the wasted time and energy in searching for documents, photocopy them and running around to and from the courts and the lawyers’ offices and houses. They do not have a single piece of paper to show how they spent over one million rupees. When will this poor, innocent family (They are literally a poor family.) have peace of mind and be free of this yoke around their neck?” Isn’t justice delayed for twenty-five long years, justice denied? In that case what is the use of this judiciary? There are 1.1 million cases such as this currently going on and on ………… and on, sucking the blood of the poor of this country.

Here is another example of a case I personal am acquainted with. When I requested from the accused, who was finally acquitted, information about the case, he sent me an email and I quote it here. “I was in remand prison from 1^st to 8^th October, 2001. My first entry to courts was on 8^th October, 2001 and last time was on December 7^th, 2016. (15 years and 2 months) I attended courts 53 times without missing even one day, the minimum being two times to maximum being seven times a year. I saw at least eight judges. We had several lawyers due to very different reasons. Every time we had a senior lawyer, we had to pay a big amount of money and after a few years they would ask us to pay another large sum to continue the case.” Forget the lakhs and lakhs of rupees spent; the mental torture and the social suspicions he had to endure for fifteen years would have broken a weaker man. The complainant, who was trying to blackmail him, and the lethargic police who could not prove the case, go Scot free as if nothing happened. Where is justice?

It is not so much increasing the number of courts and judges that will decrease the number of cases still been heard. They too are necessary. But if the lawyers are free to ask for any number of dates and postponements and like leeches continue to suck the clients dry; the 1.1 million is not going to lessen.