Some giants of the Ceylon Bar I encountered on my return

Excerpted from the Memoirs of a Cabinet Secretary by BP Peiris

After a couple of days at home, father took me to his classmate and best man at his wedding, B. F. de Silva for advice. B. F. was one of the straightest of men, both at the Bar and in public affairs. He was a man of few words and never wasted the time of the court. He was, at this time, a senior member of the Bar, but got few retainers because each year he raised his fee by one guinea in order that the juniors might get some work.

Would that other seniors followed that example instead of concentrating on their welfare. B. F. was glad to see my father, and welcomed me. His advice to me was crisp and concise, and typical of the man. He said “All I can tell you is this. You are a Barrister-at-law but you don’t know our law. Therefore read our Law Reports from the first to the current volume. Secondly, an advocate’s fee is one guinea. Don’t be ashamed to accept that fee, but don’t appear for two or three rupees and a bundle of cigars as some others seem to be doing. Thirdly, never sign a proctor’s receipt for more than the actual fee paid to you.” And that was all. How correct this advice was will be seen later.

In my practice I was clean and had no contact with the touts who used to hang about the banyan trees that adorn the court premises. I was working in the Chambers of N. K. Choksy, another straight man at the Bar and a perfect gentleman. He was meticulous in his work and I learned a great deal from him, particularly in giving attention to the smaller matters of detail which appeared to weigh heavily with him. He used to spend many hours settling mortgage bonds for which he was well paid. He told me that great care had to be used in drafting pleadings as the entire responsibility would be on you when the matter came to court, and then it would be too late to admit your error.

At the beginning, there was very little work for a Junior. My father’s friend, Francis de Zoysa, K. C., told me that if, at the end of my first year, I averaged four guineas a month, I should consider myself very lucky and as getting on in the profession. According to the fee book which I kept, the fees I earned during my few years in practice did not hit the target, although they came pretty near, which I thought was good according to Francis de Zoysa’s estimate.

My proctor relatives in the outstations and the proctors in my home town, Panadura, used to send me work whenever they could, work in the original courts as well as in appeal, and I took great pains over the study of my briefs.

I received my first brief in the Panadura Magistrate’s court within seven days of my taking my oaths as an advocate and was junior to H. A. P. Sandrasagara, K. C. This eminent silk, well built and very dark in complexion, spoke such good English that if one heard him behind a screen one would have thought it was an Englishman speaking. When my father heard that Sandara, as everyone called him, was to lead me as his junior in my first case, he invited the silk to lunch on the day of the case. The invitation was accepted as the two old gentlemen were friends and as there was no rest house in the town.

He arrived and, while driving from my father’s house to the court, I asked him what he thought about the case. “Which case?” he asked. I said “Today’s case” and he inquired whether I had read the brief. I replied that this was my first case and that I knew my brief inside out. “Young man,” he said seriously, “Take the advice of an old hand. Never study your brief. Always go into court with an open mind.” He was experienced enough to go into court with an open mind, and he won his case too.

There was R. L. Pereira, K. C., a classmate of my father, a dominant personality, who studied his brief so thoroughly that he carried all the facts in his head. He appeared in all the biggest trials, rape, arson, murder, we have had. On one occasion, in a criminal trial, he was opposed to his son R. G. C. who died young. At one stage there was a heated argument between counsel when R. L. said “My learned friend is too old, he has forgotten his law.” After the case, both counsel walked out of court, the incident forgotten, and the son offering the father a cigarette out of his case. Such is the camaraderie of the Bar. Years later, I met R. L. at a party. I went up to him and asked whether he could place me. For a moment he thought and, with that marvellous memory of his, said “Yes, Edmund’s son.”

I have been junior to nearly every King’s Counsel practising at that time. Of them I had the highest regard and respect for F. A. Hayley, who carried with him all the traditions of the English Bar. Without casting any reflection on the other silks at the time, I should like to say this of Hayley. He was the only silk who ever asked me whether I had been paid a proper fee. Bar practice requires that a junior should be paid one-third to half his senior’s fee.

In my first case as Hayley’s junior, he came into the District Court of Colombo fifteen minutes before time and asked me “Have you been feed?” I told him that I had been given a fee and he asked “How much?” I said “One”. He was angry, said he was not appearing in the case until I had been paid my proper fee, and said “Let’s clear out of court”. He then called the proctor and demanded that I be paid my fee. I was then given a further nine guineas, which Hayley asked me to count, after which he marked his appearance in court.

During the case, Hayley asked me only one question “How many square yards are there in an acre?” The case had something to do with a rubber estate with trees planted 15 feet by 15 instead of the normal 18 feet by 18; hence the square yardage. I had to rush to the Law Library and consult Ferguson’s Directory to give Hayley the answer. He once obliged the court by reading a fidei commissum deed which was in Sinhala and which counsel on the other side, a Sinhalese, was unable to read.

H. V. Perera, Q. C. once came to court prepared in a case which, if it was taken up, would have lasted a few days. For some reason, this case was allowed to stand down and another of his cases called. He rose. There was not a mark on his brief. He had not read it. The judges were Garvin and Akbar. He turned to the plaint and summarized it to the Bench. He next read the defendant’s answer, and now knew what the dispute was about.

He then read the issues and had got to the crux of the matter when one of the judges asked him what the trial judge had held on issue four. Quickly, he turned to the judgment and told their Lordships that it would be best if he read the entire judgment to them. Having read it, he put his brief aside, argued a matter of law without reading any of the evidence, and won his case.

A. R. H. Canakeratne had a wonderful memory. He was a simple and a studious man who came daily to the Law Library but did not appear in the courts. He had a large consulting practice. I once had to go to his residence for a consultation and expected to see an extensive library. Instead, I found a small bookcase with a dozen odd volumes of the New Law Reports. The rest of the law he carried in his head.

Sometimes, when a judge put a question to counsel arguing an appeal, Canaks would tug at counsel’s gown and whisper 13 N. L. R. page 43, and that settled the matter. How he carried all this in his head surprised everyone who came in touch with him. In a case of mine, I had looked up all the law to discover a point in my favour but found none. In the end, I went to Canaks and asked him whether he could assist me.

He was always willing to help a junior. When I mentioned my difficulty, he scratched his head for some time, thinking, and then said “You are right. There is no reported case on the point, but if you look at 23 N. L. R. p. 345, you might find three lines in the judgment of the Privy Council which might help you.” And there it was, exactly as he had said.

He had some trouble with his voice, and that was the reason he refused to argue cases in court. If his friends persuaded him to appear, he was brilliant in his argument. After a few appearances in court, he took silk and was shortly afterwards elevated to the Bench.

I remember W. H. Perera, brother of E. W., who had an extensive practice in the District Court of Colombo in land and partition cases. It was W. H. who, in tracing the pedigree in a partition case where the litigants were poor persons, referred to two sections of the descendants of the original owner who had married twice, as being of the first and the second mat respectively. He was a classical scholar and a teetotaller.

There was E. G. P. Jayatilleke, K. C., a leading silk in my time and a charming gentleman. He had a fund of humour and used to entertain us, juniors, with his jokes. In passing, I should like to pay my tribute to F. H. B. Koch, M. T. de S. Amarasekera, N. Nadarajah, C. Nagalingam and his brother Thiagalingam, N. E. Weerasooria, Lalitha Rajapakse, and Gratiaen, whose junior I have been at one time or another. There were G. G. Ponnambalam and Dr Colvin R. de Silva, neither of whom used a small word if a bigger one was available. Colvin never spoke of a page in a book; it was “pagination”, and with him the evidence of a witness was always “testification”. These two friends were small editions of Dr Samuel Johnson.

For a short time with us was Miss Mehta, a Parsee Barrister. When I was working in Choksy’s Chambers one day, he received a letter from Miss Mehta who was then in London, inquiring whether he would have her in his Chambers on her return to Ceylon. Choksy did not like the proposal at all. I told him that he ought to help the only member of his community at the Bar and he agreed on one condition, that I would always be in his Chambers when Miss Mehta was there.

In the Law Library, Choksy sat at the head of our table. He appeared to have a prescriptive right to the seat and no one dared to sit in his seat if he was present. There was Hayley. Others at this table were D.S. Jayawickrama, D. W. Fernando, N. M., son of B. F. de Silva, J. L. M. and H. N. G. Fernando and the lone woman Miss Mehta. At other tables sat my friends Kariapper, Manikkavasagar, Sivagnanasundaram, Panditha Gunawardena, O. L. de Kretser and D. J. R. Gunawardena, later all judges.