{"id":134225,"date":"2014-12-03T20:47:32","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T15:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=134225"},"modified":"2014-12-07T10:51:46","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T05:21:46","slug":"rkw-goonesekere-renowned-lawyer-unswerving-defender-of-human-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/rkw-goonesekere-renowned-lawyer-unswerving-defender-of-human-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"RKW Goonesekere: Renowned Lawyer, Unswerving Defender Of Human Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\"><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Suriya+Wickremasinghe&amp;x=9&amp;y=6\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Suriya Wickremasinghe<\/span><\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is too soon for us, of the Civil Rights Movement and The Nadesan Centre for Human Rights Through Law, to write a full appreciation of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=R.K.W.+Goonesekere&amp;x=11&amp;y=5\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">RKW Goonesekere<\/span><\/a>, who headed our movement for so long. For the present, let us just take a glimpse at our records. Thirty six years ago we wrote of him:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49319\" style=\"width: 213px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/R.K.W.-Goonesekere.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49319\" class=\"size-full wp-image-49319\" alt=\"R.K.W. Goonesekere\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/R.K.W.-Goonesekere.jpg\" width=\"203\" height=\"231\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-49319\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">R.K.W. Goonesekere<\/p><\/div>\n<p><b>We would like at this stage to say something about two men of distinction who have headed our movement. Our first Chairman was Prof. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Ediriweera+Sarachchandra&amp;x=11&amp;y=3\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">E.R. Sarachchandra<\/span><\/a>. Our movement will always be profoundly grateful to this distinguished don and dramatist for his ready acceptance of this office at a time when many were reluctant to be identified with CRM at all. During Dr. Sarachchandra\u2019s absences abroad our Deputy Chairman R.K.W. (Raja) Goonesekere, then Principal of the Law College, acted for him. Later Dr. Sarachchandra was appointed Ambassador to France, and we asked Raja Goonesekere to take his place. His response was characteristic\u2013 \u201cYes certainly, but are we sure there\u2019s nobody better?\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>CRM could not have been more fortunate in having as its head this mild mannered, scholarly man, of distinguished academic record, extraordinary integrity and deep commitment to human rights. Raja Goonesekere was no figurehead in CRM, he gave it his time and talent freely, participating in its research and analyses and signing his name to its public statements and declarations. As a result he was sometimes at the receiving end of crude attacks including in Parliament where personal jibes took the place of reasoned reply to our arguments. Some time later, legislation was passed assailing the independent status of the Law College and bringing it under control of the Ministry of Justice. Raja Goonesekere continued with his work as Registrar of the Council of Legal Education and Principal of the Law College, both as a teacher of law and with the legal research which was always his abiding interest, and he continued as before to give of his spare time to CRM. Suddenly, he found himself the target of intrigue and a shameful campaign of vilification, which culminated in his decision to resign from his job. After a short interval Raja Goonesekere, who never had any ambition other than to pursue his vocation as a teacher of law in his own country, regretfully took up a teaching post abroad. The loss to the students of the Law College, to legal education which he had served for twenty five years, and to the CRM, was great; the loss to our country was greater still.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i>[from the Introduction to The People\u2019s Rights: Documents of the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka 1971 \u2013 1978]<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Fortunately for us all, Raja returned to Sri Lanka a few years later and resumed his contribution to the training of young lawyers, the\u00a0development of constitutional law,\u00a0the promotion of civil liberties and the enrichment of the intellectual life of our land. When a vacancy occurred,\u00a0he resumed his role of Chairman of the Civil Rights Movement and of the Nadesan Centre, which positions he held till\u00a0he died. A whole book now remains\u00a0to be written about the outstanding contribution to\u00a0society of this remarkable and most admirable of men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":134227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>RKW Goonesekere: Renowned Lawyer, Unswerving Defender Of Human Rights - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/rkw-goonesekere-renowned-lawyer-unswerving-defender-of-human-rights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"RKW Goonesekere: Renowned Lawyer, Unswerving Defender Of Human Rights - 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