Though in the second half of life, I am only a Benjamin in the noble profession of law which some of the great souls of our times like Gandhiji, Abraham Lincoln and Lenin practiced. When I enrolled myself as an advocate this September and started practicing in this outstanding bar with two centuries of checkered history, quite many of my friends and well wishers, including some of the very lawyers themselves wondered how come I (a Catholic priest) take up this ‘profession of lying’! Someone was even hinting at that I was taking up a profession which Gandhiji abandoned in his experiment with truth!
It appears that those respected friends seemingly are quite certain about what truth is what it is not! But I would humbly beg to differ with them citing an incident in the life of Jesus where he was said to have kept silent when asked as to “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38) In the text book of Logic [by one Asirvadam] for PDC in the early seventies there was a quote in Tamil: ‘Kannaal kaanpathum poi, kaathaal ketpathum poi, theera visaarippathe mei’, which means what one sees and hears need not be true, so enquire enough to reach truth. The same is the gist of the Maya theory of Indian philosophy, I think. What one sees or hears could very well be mere appearance like the snake one sees in a piece of rope in the dim light.
Truth is no one’s monopoly! In this world of appearances almost everything is relative. Ordinary humans in such situation would be left to chaos and confusion and burdensome life! Hence the wisdom of the ages has left us with a great legacy of customs, traditions and laws. That is how the civilized world came to inherit the rule of law for peaceful co-existence.
What makes us different from other species is this rule of law vis-à-vis the rule of the jungle, that is, ‘might is right’. In our encompassing democratic system of governments almost everything comes under this rule of law and there is no way of escaping it, especially in a situation of dispute which is not that uncommon.
Honorable Mr. Justice Harun-Ul-Rashid addressing the new advocates on their Enrolment said: “After more than half a century of independence the judiciary in this country is under a constant threat and being endangered from within and without…” (KLT 2010 (3), p.51) This is what Justice Bhagavati in his address on the Law Day, 1986 stressed when he noted: ‘… the judicial system in creaking under the weight of arrears.’ It is not an insurmountable problem, considering the way it was handled by the Supreme Court since 1985.
Of the many reasons contributing to this problem, the following are a few:
• Judges – population ratio in India is 8 per million, whereas it is 50 in the West.
• Lawyers taking adjournments.
• Government, the reckless litigant.
• Fake pendency of cases.
• The growing litigation among people due to growing literacy, the revolution in the electronic and print media etc.
While the governments and the judiciary can do substantially to bring it down, the lawyers also could do their share towards this. This is mostly with regard to the very image of the legal profession itself! ‘People have no good impression about lawyers. Though a vast majority of them are really wise, honest, frank and reasonable, a small minority… have ruined the image… Lawyers have a very poor image. No one is prepared to accept a lawyer as his tenant. Banks do not trust lawyers even for a small loan. In the marriage market too, lawyer is the last item. This wrong impression about lawyers that they are inherently unreasonable persons has to be changed.’
This cannot be done overnight and not by general body resolutions. It has to be done at the individual level by individual transformation.’ [‘Law Day’, M. N. Krishnamani, President SCBA, in Supreme Court Cases: 2004, Vol. I, p. 1ff]
It is this concern I too share and dare to address through this reflection on our noble profession with my iota of experience in the bar. Let us all strive together to take our profession to its befitting heights and collaborate with the bench in our efforts to dispense justice to those who are denied of it for one reason or other.
The gown we wear is black, rather dark. Unlike the light which may have many shades, it is a great equalizer. It leaves one blind to see the differences and thus be left prejudiced or biased. That may be the reason why the goddess of justice is depicted blind folded! What matters is justice and justice alone – “Fiat justitia raut coelum” which means ‘justice shall be done, even if the heavens fall down.’
Law implies order and should ensure it. That is why we say ‘law and order’ and that goes hand in hand. A lawyer thus can be anything other than being disorderly. It has such other corollaries like being punctual, honest, trustworthy, responsible, disciplined, committed etc.
Our client is the reason d’être of our profession. But for him lawyers don’t have any relevance! We take his cause to the arbitrator for settlement or resolution. That necessitates the bench. And a lawyer is like the middle term in logic connecting the client to the bench in proper perspective, that is, legal perspective and disappears.
‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’ For the timely dispensation of justice, the prompt and effective service of lawyers is a sine qua non. Hence lawyers need to be earnest with their job and clients and the end result of ensuring justice to the aggrieved and agitated.
A lawyer’s profession being one ensuring justice, no unfair, underhand method or means be deployed at all, whatever be the consequences.
As client is to the lawyer, so is a lawyer to the bench in the legal arena. And I am sure that the bench is more than simply aware of this. Therefore, let all concerned work together to ensure justice which our great Constitution promises to secure to all its citizens besides liberty, equality and fraternity.
