Weakness in Sinhala influenced my decision to emigrate to Australia

By Nimal Wikremanayeke
(Excerpted from A Life In The Law)

My father had been a classics scholar before he studied law. He had introduced me to The Iliad, The Odyssey, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and the like when I was 10-years old. English was the language we spoke at home and Sinhalese was used only to speak to the servants. I am not proud of this fact. While I was growing up, the British were in power and my language was suppressed by the British, who called it “the vernacular” This continued until I was 15-years old.

In school, we had one period a week in Sinhalese before Ceylon received independence. I excelled in all the other subjects, save for my mother tongue. In 1948, when we received our independence the scene changed dramatically. From this time, we had a period of two hours of Sinhalese every day and I just could not cope with it. I was slapped regularly by my Sinhalese master, Mr Jayasekere, for not knowing Sinhalese. I excelled in Latin but failed miserably in Sinhalese. I never received less than 190 marks out of 200 in Latin but no more than 40 out of 200 in Sinhalese. This went on for several years until I went off to England to study, to widen my repertoire and broaden my horizons.

My lack of knowledge of my mother tongue had now returned to haunt me. After the election in May 1970, I mentioned my displeasure at this new turn of events in the Law Library to a Sinhalese-educated advocate. He sniggered and said sarcastically, “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on” Yes, the caravan was moving on and leaving me behind barking madly.

I thought to myself, how the hell am I going to think and address the court in Sinhalese? I was at my wits’ end wondering what to do. As the situation continued like this for a few months I was beginning to despair. The two new Sinhala-educated lawyers I had employed tried to help me cope with my lack of knowledge of the Sinhalese language but to no avail.

I happened to go to the Magistrates’ Court in Colombo South in August 1970 and met a friend of mine, Clarence Fernando. We were discussing our situation and pondering what we were to do. Clarence told me that all was not lost. A friend of his, Frank Pereira, had recently migrated to Australia. He told me that Frank was in the legal profession and was doing extremely well. Heartened by this little tidbit, I decided to emigrate to Australia. Had I known the truth about Frank Pereira, I certainly would not have abandoned my large practice at the Ceylon Bar and migrated to Australia. I could still have conquered the Sinhalese language and have had a gracious life in Ceylon.

I returned home and asked my dear wife Anna Maria, “Shall we go to Australia?” Anna Maria, bless her, was always game for anything I wanted to do. It was only many years later that she told me she was terrified when I had asked her whether we should go to Australia.When I came to Australia I learned that Frank Pereira was a law clerk earning a relatively small income of $30 a week. In 1970, secretaries in Australia were earning $60 a week.

Napoleon Bonaparte

In desperation I turned for guidance to my Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon had been a great source of inspiration to me ever since my school days. One of my classmates, Ralph Deraniyagala, was an avid disciple of Napoleon. He suffered from a bad case of Napoleonitis and was an eccentric young boy. When we were young lads in our early teens, he had selected most of us, in class, to be Napoleon’s marshals and I was fortunate to be chosen as Marshal Ney.

Ralph was not only eccentric but also extremely impulsive. He would disrupt our lessons in class by springing up from his seat and shouting out to one of his marshals to charge. He would seriously upset the equilibrium in the class but the masters tolerated his bizarre behaviour. As a result of Ralph, I started devouring whatever books I could read on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, starting with Abbott’s magnificent treatise on the life of Napoleon. Napoleon was of the view that there was always a “Career open to talent” He proclaimed that he was “a Corsican by birth, a Frenchman by adoption and an Emperor by conquest”. It was his belief that if one had ability, one could succeed anywhere in the world. So I decided to take up the challenge and emigrate to Australia.

Ronnie de Kretser

One of my father’s readers, Ivor Misso, had left for Australia in the 1950s. Misso had a substantial practice in the District Court of Colombo but had left for what he thought would be greener pastures. Dad wrote to him to ask him whether he could help me in my new adventure. Ivor Misso wrote back, suggesting that Dad write to Ronnie de Kretser, a partner in the solicitors’ firm of Weigall & Crowther in Melbourne. Ronnie had qualified as a proctor of the Ceylon Supreme Court in 1948 and left for Australia at the same time as Ivor Misso in 1956. Dad then wrote to Ronnie who advised me to put in my application for immigration and send him a copy, as the Minister for Immigration, Mr Phillip Lynch, was a good friend of his.

We duly made our application for immigration in November and we were successful due to the efforts of Ronnie de Kretser. I received a warm letter from Phillip Lynch congratulating me on my application and wishing me all the best in my new country. We were passed for immigration in December and it was only then I began to have second thoughts about migrating to Australia. However, Melbourne, my intended destination, was not unfamiliar to me as Dad had brought us out to Australia on a one-month holiday in 1952.1 had liked it then.

Distribution of work

Late in 1970, all the government corporation work was given to friends of the SLFP, Mrs Bandaranaike’s party. This was nothing new. Each successive government in Ceylon repaid its loyal supporters by giving them government legal work. (I was to be unpleasantly surprised many years later to also find that some work in Australia is handed out on patronage and privilege.)

One of the privileged few was a lawyer who did work on the “motion roll”, which consisted of the list of summary matter applications to be heard in the Motion Court. That was the extent of his practice. The five District Courts had an hour’s work on the motion roll every morning before the trials for the day were heard. These summary matters were determined by the judge. The lawyer concerned had never conducted a trial prior to Mrs Bandaranaike coming to power in 1970, and did not know how a trial should be conducted.

Weakness…

As I mentioned earlier, I had a large and a lucrative commercial practice. I was briefed for the defendant in a “mortgage bond” case. In Ceylon, a mortgage under Roman-Dutch law could only be enforced by court proceedings, unlike in Australia, where proceedings for possession could be issued after the mortgage had been terminated by appropriate notice. I had no defence to the action as my client was seriously in default of his obligations under the mortgage.

The above mentioned lawyer was briefed to appear for the plaintiff, the State Mortgage Bank, a government institution. When we went to court, he was gloating and told me that the days of the English-speaking advocates were over for it was now the turn of the Sinhala-educated lawyers.

The case was called on for hearing before Judge Vaitialingam. My opponent opened his case with bravado and then led his evidence. He kept smirking as he knew my client had no defence. The evidence he led was short and sweet. He led evidence that the mortgage had not been paid, then sat down. He did not lead any evidence that my client was in default. He did not lead any evidence that a demand had been paid for the arrears. Nor did he lead any evidence that my client had failed to cure his default. He then closed his case.

I asked him whether he had finished. He said “yes.” I asked him several times whether he had finished and he kept getting angrier and angrier. The judge then asked him whether he had finished and he again replied “yes.” I then made a No Case submission upon which my opponent sought to re-open his case. The judge refused his application, saying that I had asked him several times whether he had finished to which he had replied “yes” The judge had also asked him the same question and got an answer in the affirmative. He refused the application and dismissed his case.

It cost the bank Rs 150,000 or the equivalent of $30,000, a substantial sum of money in 1970.1 gave my opponent the two-finger salute which Henry V’s long bowman gave the French at the Battle of Agincourt and walked out of court. Suffice it to say that lawyer did not get another government brief. This case was not included here for the purpose of skiting about my forensic ability, but for the purpose of illustrating that patronage can occasionally go wrong.