Speech delivered at the Annual General Meeting of the Judicial Services Association held on 22nd December 2012
| by Justice C.V.Wigneswaran
Gurur brahma gurur vishnuhu gurur devo
maheshwaraha guru saakshaat para brahma tasmai
shree gurave namaha
 |
| Besieged Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake getting a standing ovation
from hundreds of lawyers at their annual Voet Lights 2012 dinner on
Friday. Pic by Mangala Weerasekera ( Sunday Times, Colombo) |
( December 23,
2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I was indeed pleasantly
surprised when your President invited me
to address you today. It is eight
years since I retired. Though I
have been very busy addressing here
and abroad many a meeting on legal,
social, religious, literary, historical
and many other allied subjects, and
sometimes writing about them, the Original
Judiciary to which I belonged and the
tenure of which I cherished so much
never invited me so far. Perhaps it
was because I spoke and wrote of
matters that were not appreciated until
now! At least, the fact that when
a sense of apprehension, uncertainty and
confusion has enveloped you, thanks to
what is happening around you in Sri
Lanka, you have thought of those who
stood for the Independence of the
Judiciary, and lived their life under
much stress and indignity steeped in
such Independence, speaks well of you.
It was not very long ago that
this speaker together with another senior
member of the Original Judiciary had
to remind the Secretary to His
Excellency the President of the
undesirability of interfering with the
Independence of the Judiciary when we
were called upon to inquire into the
dismissals of several Original Court Judges
during the tenure of office of
Justice Sarath N. Silva. We politely
declined to serve on the
special committee and indicated that if
the request came from the Judicial
Services Commission we were
prepared to assist.
Full Text of the speech follows;
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