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| Sunday, 18 December 2005 |
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Scramble for polyester cotton Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake Several decades ago a judge of the Supreme Court in a somewhat heated exchange with a prominent King's Counsel, well known for his eloquence in the Legislature and the Bar, observed that some are born to the silk while others have silk thrust upon them. It was not very complementary to the counsel concerned. I was reminded of this, watching the moves to have four persons named to be President's Counsel to be sworn as such by Supreme Court, despite improper procedure by the former President's office in submitting their names to the Registrar of the Supreme Court and not to the Chief Justice. The beginning In the beginning only Police Constables were known as PCs, and the abbreviation is still in use. With the Republican Constitution of 1972, the title of Queen's Counsel changed to President's Counsel, as the President of Sri Lanka replaced the British monarch as our Head of State. Still later there came the Provincial Councils known as PCs with Provincial Councillors also referred to as PCs. Technological developments in the textile industry brought polyester cotton to the market, which led to yet another use of the PC abbreviation, to describe a quality of cloth inferior to real cotton; all of which shows a profusion of PCs in this country. This makes one wonder why there is so much heartburn about four or five Attorneys-at-law, caught in the web of an administrative blunder, being unable to take their oaths as President's Counsel or PCs. Is it because the lavish parties at five star hotels that follow their oath taking will be missed by members of the Bar, who have a rollicking time of PC party trotting, somewhat like the pub crawling that many of us scribes are used to? The difference is that while the scribes pay for their own drinks at the pubs, all the premium scotch and best wines at these joyous mingling of lawyers are paid for by the hosts, now elevated above their peers. They are sure of recovering the costs of entertainment from higher fees they can now extract from helpless clients! The same affected lawyers and their pleaders would no doubt pounce upon the type of administrative bungling that put them to such pain of mind today, if such blunder was in favour of a client in a court of law, insisting the court take serious notice of it in coming to conclusions. The issue here is about the difference between silk and polyester cotton in terms of the quality of person on whom the PC is thrust upon, and those who earn it deservedly, as if being born to the law. The latter although called PCs are real silks in the legal profession while others are mere polyester cotton. Another problem This is yet another problem arising from the JRJ's 1978 Constitution that changed the system of picking the best to be elevated as President's Counsel. It gave power to the Executive President to pick recipients without consulting those who know better. Today when a President thrusts the suffix PC after a lawyer's name, only a few of those who really deserve it get chosen. There are PCs today hatched out with little legal excellence. There are those, to whom good briefs or interventions in court are very few and far between, picked for this dubious honour, enabling them to charge higher fees for consultations and court appearances tagged on by juniors. Some are made PCs as repayment for political support; others get polyester cotton for attending to legal technicalities of dubious and often corrupt transactions; the worst are those rewarded as PCs for political sycophancy. Unique in the last category is one who has settled down with family in far of climes for nearly five years, due to lack of faith in Sri Lanka's future, giving an odious touch of family bandyism. The situation has moved from the absurd to the ridiculous with the President of the Bar Association, pleading for those prevented from getting their polyester cotton, due to an administrative blunder that amounts to an insult to the Chief Justice and the Supreme Court. Today's President of the Bar Association exposed his political partiality when soon after the bomb attack on President Chandrika Kumaratunga in December 1999, he came on private television saying her mental faculties may have been affected making her unable to function as Executive President. He was gleefully pitching hard for Ranil Wickremesinghe at a time of national tragedy. It seems time the Bar Association insists that its president, who switches political allegiances with consummate ease, is taken to the shrink to ascertain whether he is mentally fit to continue in office. Current Hulftsdorp The current Hulftsdorp scramble for polyester cotton is but a sideshow to the type of sycophancy that is the hallmark of success in Sri Lankan society. It is best if President Mahinda Rajapakse puts those misdirected recommendations into the deserving dustbin, and thinks of reverting to the old standards of selecting President's Counsel. We can then be sure that even though called PC they are true silks in the profession. |
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