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Speech by Minister of Justice and Judicial Reforms W. D. J. Seneviratne at the inaugural session of the National Law Conference 2004 on October 22 at the Trans Asia Hotel, Colombo.

Minister W. D. J. Seneviratne

It is indeed a great privilege to be present amongst the distinguished gathering here today and let me thank the Bar Association of Sri Lanka for having organised this conference.

Today we are felicitating those members of the Bar who have completed fifty years in practice. We have assembled here to revere and honour these eminent persons not only because of their age but also due to their acumen and wisdom gathered by practising law for fifty years. They have undoubtedly rendered yeomen service to this society and to the profession.

I deem this as a privilege to be in their midst. And the young generation of lawyers should remember that in our tradition of practising law it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants of yesteryear that we see the distant horizons.

I congratulate the members of Bar who have completed fifty years in practice and wish them all the best for a future full of joy, happiness and good health.

"The profession of law," said Justice McCardie, "has two aspects".

"It may be regarded as a pursuit which yields, if success be gained, a reward of fees and emoluments but it may also be looked upon as a vocation which offers the joy of intellectual achievement, which claims the allegiance of unswerving honour, which asks for the guardianship of high tradition and which affords a wide field for loyal and generous service to the community".

Thackeray described a great lawyer as a man, "who had laboriously brought down a great intellect to the comprehension of a mean subject and in his fierce grasp of that, resolutely excluded from his mind all higher thoughts, all better things, all the wisdom and philosophy of historians, all the thoughts of poets, all wit, fancy and reflection; all arts, love, truth altogether so that he might master that enormous legend of law.

He could not cultivate a friendship or do a charity or admire a work of a genius or kindle at the sight of beauty. Love, nature and art were shut out of him".

Although these gratuitous and unkind remarks have been made by certain well-known persons it is important to place on record that the legal profession is one of the most noblest of professions in human society.

As once observed by Mahatma Gandhi, a true lawyer is one who puts truth and service in the first place and who ceaselessly endeavours to enthrone "Justice".

In the absence of law anarchy will take place. In the absence of law, order will cease to exist in society. In the absence of law, the very moral fabric of society will be shred into pieces. It is a practising lawyer who protects the rights of the individual of society.

It is a lawyer whose training acumen is used to perfect and finalise proper commercial transactions so that an investor friendly society shall be established providing more employment opportunities to the general public. It is a lawyer who fights for the rights of an employee in the tribunals set up for the protection of the employees rights.

Need not state that in the recent past the legal profession and the knowledge of law have been experiencing many changes. With the advent of globalisation the demands for the profession have escalated tremendously.

Municipal legal regimes are undergoing drastic changes both conceptually and practically as a result of the influence coming from the ever expanding international legal regimes.

Unlike in the past, subjects such as laws relating to financial regulations, laws relating to commercial transactions, laws relating to the establishment and maintenance of companies, the laws relating to tariffs and customs etc. are changing in an unimaginable rapid speed.

As a result of this change, a new culture is emerging in the human community; for instance, the World Trade Organisation has indicated its support for the International Labour Organisation to develop core labour standards that can be applied in any part of the world. On the heels of these developments one can observe the conceptual changes that would surface in the municipal legal regimes.

In this century there is an increased demand for global solutions to human problems and as a result the extent to which any State can independently determine its future diminishes. We therefore need to strengthen institutions for global decision making and make them more responsible to the people they affect. Lawyers of tomorrow have to be firmly sensitive to these changes.

If we do not take expeditious steps to expand our knowledge on the changes that are taking place globally on the sphere of law, we will become a backward nation that is incapable of rising to the occasion.

The challenge of a modern lawyer is to acquaint himself thoroughly with these changes so that he could be of much use to his clientele, which includes the State apparatus, the financial institutions as well as for the individuals.

As can be observed, in order to achieve that level of expertise in these changing fields of law, practising lawyers will be placed on the task of combining their practical approach with academic learning.

In my view our profession has this greatest challenge in our hands to make effective arrangements for the combination of the academic knowledge with their practical approach to law.

Traditionally, it has always been a misfortune that the practical side of law has not been combined with the academic development of the legal sphere. As had been once observed by Lord Atkin, the gulf between the two is very wide; much wider than it is in America or on the Continent. I think that there are historical reasons for this development.

For instance, the reluctance to study and develop certain departments of the law which are unremunerative to a practitioner, for example Public and Private International Law and Comparative Law and legal history still continues in the same way as it has been some decades ago.

However, with the development of treaty and convention based international legal regimes which transgress the municipal boundaries of countries, these changes have to be studied deeply by lawyers of tomorrow who are desirous of providing a healthy service to society.

I think steps should, therefore, be taken by the Council of Legal Education and the other institutions established to teach law to make an effective cohesion of the practical side of law with the academic development of law.

One other aspect is directly referable to the ethics of our profession. When we endeavour to pass on to our next generation the good practices of our noble profession, we should firmly resolve to abide by our sound ethical principles and guidelines.

The practising lawyers of today by their professional conduct should set an example to the lawyers of tomorrow. Any unethical behaviour or any professional misconduct on our part can be detrimental to the entire future of our profession.

Voltaire once said, that he was ruined twice in his life, once when he lost a law suit and once when he won a law suit. This reminds me of the fact that some of the practising lawyers also contribute greatly to the problem of Laws Delays which Shakespeare once placed amongst the chief ills of human life.

This may perhaps be one of the reasons why in the history of mankind when revolution comes in any land and the people take charge of affairs at last, the first reform is always the execution of all lawyers.

As once observed by an eminent Indian Jurist, it is often the only reform which subsequent ages do not regret.

The fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries are celebrated for the voyages of discovery that proved that the world is round. The eighteenth century saw the first proclamations of universal human rights and in the twentieth century we saw the conquering of space.

Now in the twenty first century we face the task of developing a suitable form of government for a single globalized world. Law plays a cardinal role in shaping the world into a one global village. Lawyers of tomorrow should be ready to face this daunting moral and intellectual challenge with a firm resolve and dexterity.

We are inheritors of a great profession.

Let's work together to enhance the knowledge of the law, to adhere to our great ethical and professional traditions, and to work together to the betterment of our motherland and its people.

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