He carried his excellence with utmost humility

On January 5, Sri Lanka lost one of her most illustrious sons, Justice Christopher Gregory Weeramantry--who justifiably earned the iconic Sri Lankabhimanya, for having ‘rendered exceptionally outstanding and most distinguished service’ to Sri Lanka-barely six weeks after he celebrated his 90th birthday on November 17.

Justice Weeramantry strode the international legal sphere as a brilliant judge and eminent academic, yet carried his excellence with utmost humility. His loss is shared by the international community.

Justice Weeramantry, or “Christy” as we would refer to him at Hulftsdorp, was the son of Gregory and Lilian Weeramantry. His father, a highly qualified educationist founded Alexandra College which Justice Weeramantry describes as having “played a significant role and discharged a very useful function on the Sri Lankan educational scene. Many eminent Sri Lankans – judges, doctors, civil servants, lawyers, international officials and cabinet ministers – were greatly helped in their careers by this institution’.

Justice Weeramantry had two elder brothers, Lucien and Douglas. Lucien was a lawyer with a wide practice and among his clients was Talduwe Somarama, the main accused in the Bandaranaike assassination case.

Two other members of the family, Justice Thomas de Sampayo, and D.J. Wimalasurendra, the architect of the Laxpana hydroelectric scheme were acknowledged by Justice Weeramantry as role models that inspired him.Young ‘Christy’ as he then was, attended Royal College, Colombo where he displayed his twin skills in academic and literary versatility.

He was the Editor of the College Magazine, and the Chairman of the Senior Literary Association. In 1943, he was awarded the Empire Essay Prize. His intellectual acumen won him several class and school prizes and the coveted Governor’s Scholarship and the Principal’s Prize.

For his tertiary education, Justice Weeramantry entered the University of Ceylon where he graduated with B.A. (Honours) and then proceeded to obtain an LL.B and an LL.D from King’s College London.

Justice Weeramantry was called to the Bar as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 1948. He excelled in his professional career and I had the privilege of associating with him as a fellow member of the Sri Lanka Bar, before he began his meteoric rise to juristic excellence.

In 1958 Justice Weeramantry met Rosemary de Sampayo and to use his own words”I realized that this was the young lady I had been looking for. I wasted no time in showing my interest which was reciprocated and things moved rapidly and by 1959 we were married.” They enjoyed a close knit family life and were blessed with two sons and three daughters and eleven grandchildren.

Justice Weeramantry describes their life together “Rosemary and I shared all things, all experiences and a series of wonderful memories. Rosemary was an immense source of support to me in my work, never interfering in it but always unobtrusively giving me all the support needed. Even when I launched out on the great enterprise of writing my books on the law of contracts, the amount of time this claimed increased my concentration on legal activities. Yet Rosemary never grudged this extra time but wove herself into the activities connected with it. When typists were typing the manuscript or juniors were reading through it or I was busy writing it, she was part of the scene, supporting us all with refreshments as well as with her company and making less tedious the endless hours spent on this work”.

Justice Weeramantry commenced his judicial career with an appointment as a Commissioner of Assize in 1965, where he displayed a remarkable ability to guide a lay jury through the complexities of the criminal law in simple terms in summing up that met with the approval of the Court of Criminal Appeal. As junior Crown Counsel appearing before him, we were kept on our toes with mild but stern warnings of any attempts to overstep the line in enthusiastic pursuit of our cause.

In 1967 Justice Weeramantry was elevated as a Puisne Justice of the Sri Lanka Supreme Court. He retired in 1972, sacrificing the opportunity of becoming the Chief Justice of Ceylon (as we then were)and migrated to Australia to accept the position of Sir Hayden Starke Professor of Law at the Monash University in Victoria.

In 1990, Justice Abdul Cader and Prof G.L.Peiris and I as the panel of Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration were required to nominate a candidate for election to the Asian seat of the International Court of Justice. We had absolutely no difficulty in agreeing that Justice Weeramantry had the most outstanding CV of the candidates whose applications came before us.

Adorning that Court as a Member from 1991 to 1997 and as the VicePresident of the Court until 2000, Justice Weeramantry when he was interviewed by the Lanka Guardian in 2007, about matters decided by that Court,identified “I would think that the decision the Court was asked to make by the General Assembly on the illegality of nuclear weapons was the most important decision the Court was ever asked to make. This is because it involved the entire future of humanity and civilisation”.

In the course of the interview, Justice Weeramantry expressed a view that might be apposite in today’s context. In comparing the perspective of Sri Lankan Judges in comparison to Western Judges Justice Weeramantry said,“The perspectives of a Sri Lankan judge differs from those of a Western judge mainly owing to the cross-cultural perspectives which the Sri Lankan judge is so immersed in. In Sri Lanka we grow up in the midst of four major religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, all of which have substantial segments of the population as their followers. Consequently we grow up imbibing their culture and participating in their festivals and enjoying each other’s fellowship as neighbours.

As a Judge on the International Court of Justice, Justice Weeramantry demonstrated the truism expressed by drawing on his expertise in Roman Dutch Law, Hindu Law and the Islamic Law.

In the matter (New Zealand v France) the majority of Judges ruled against a request by New Zealand, and left open the question whether it was lawful for a State to use nuclear weapons in self defence. But Justice Weeramantry dissented from that ruling, as he was of the opinion that it left an opening that States could retain their nuclear arsenals and prevent their total elimination.

He quoted ancient Hindu Law that “war is intended to subjugate one’s enemy and live in peace with him thereafter, not to ravage his countryside” as reflective of the prohibition of the preparation or storing nuclear weapons. He quoted Islamic Law where “… there was much thought and writing about what we would today call international law – the treatment of prisoners of war, conduct on the battlefield, the sanctity of treaties, the privileged position of diplomats and the likes. All of these were elaborately discussed on the basis of the Holy Qu’ran and the numerous traditions of the Prophet Mohamed known as the Hadiths, dealing with these matters.

In the same case Justice Weeramantry advised that the word “genocide” in the Genocide Convention, required that “that there must be an intention to target a particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group qua such a group, and not incidentally to some other act.”And went on to identify that nuclear weapons designed to “wipe out blocks of population ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions”had little purpose other than to wipe out, in whole or part the national group of the state that was targeted.

Justice Weeramantry was a Judge in several other cases before the ICJ, significantly, Damming the Danube: Project (Hungary v Slovakia), The Case Concerning East Timor (Portugal v Australia) and others too numerous to mention by name.

Justice Weeramantry was the Chairman of the Commission into Nauru: The Environmental Damage under International Trusteeship of The UK, Australia and New Zealand. He authored a ten volume report on the Inquiry into the Rehabilitation of Phosphate Lands in that country.

Commenting on the efficacy of International Courts which do not have an enforcement system, Justice Weeramantry accepted the fact that even the most powerful states were reluctant to lose the moral high ground of not acting in violation of international law and the decisions have averted armed conflicts that may otherwise have resulted.

Justice Weeramantry was a jurist with a prolific pen. The page on Wikipedia devoted to him, contains a list of 27 books authored by him, on a range of subjects from the Law of Contracts, Equality before the Law, Human Rights, Apartheid, the Scientific Responsibility for Nuclear Weapons, Islamic Jurisprudence, Universalizing International Law, Ethical and Legal Concerns over transplation of cross specie cells.

The most recent was his memoirs in three volumes and I believe he was in the process of completing a fourth.

May he rest in eternal peace. Sunil de Silva P.C.