The death last week of Desamanya H.L. de Silva, PC, after a long illness bravely borne, has taken from our midst not just a legal luminary but a patriot, who a professional colleague has in an appreciation published in this issue assessed to be perhaps the last of Hultsdorf’s `greats.’ H.L. as he was best known among friends and colleagues honed his legal skills in the Attorney General’s department to which he was invited by then Solicitor General T.S. Fernando at the behest of Justice Noel Gratiaen who was deeply impressed by the manner in which the young lawyer had conducted a case for his senior, Felix Dias as he was then. Felix was held up in another court and HL had requested that the case be stood down so that his senior could argue it. But Justice E.H.T. Gunasekera had asked HL to carry on.

As the redoubtable Lakshman Kadirgamar, PC, said it when H.L. de Silva on July 11, 2003, was felicitated on reaching his 50th milestone as a lawyer, often a counsel holding a brief for another does not read it in the confident expectation that the case would be postponed. HL was different. He had done his homework and was ready. In half an hour it was clear that he was making headway and H.W. (Harry) Jayewardene, QC, a formidable opponent with a commanding appellate practice who was opposing, ``had to struggle to stay afloat’’ when called upon to reply. That case was won by HL who had impressed Gratiaen and led to his appointment as a Crown Counsel. The rest, as Kadirgamar said, was history and it did not take long for HL to make his mark gathering courtroom experience and honing the skills that he was to later demonstrate in great abundance first as the star on the civil side in the Attorney General’s department and thereafter in the private bar where he made an indelible mark in constitutional and human rights matters.

But it was not his razor-sharp legal brain alone that made H.L. de Silva the man he was. He had a deep and ingrained sense of integrity and as Kadirgamar had it, ``a strong commitment to the advocacy of moral issues, the defence of rights and liberties, underpinned by his deep Protestant faith.’’ Kadirgamar added in that scintillating speech made nearly six years ago: ``I would say that in recent years he shared with Dr. Colvin. R. de Silva and S. Nadesan, Q.C., this admirable quality of fearlessly going to the aid of people in need, victims of rank injustice.’’ The former foreign minister may or may not have known it, most likely he did not, as those who have been at the receiving end of the heavy hand of the State did, H.L. de Silva most often waived his fees on these matters saying ``I do not charge for cases like this.’’ Human rights, made justiciable by President J.R. Jayewardene’s much derided constitution of 1978 came very much to the fore in subsequent years when HL had reached the pinnacle of his career. He gave his best to many victims who will always remember his generosity.

HL’s patriotism was manifest in some of the cases he so brilliantly and successfully argued before the Supreme Court in recent years. His commitment to an undivided and united Sri Lanka was absolute and this was something he would never compromise on. In what was perhaps a more spacious time in the contemporary history of this country, President Jayewardene who, perhaps influenced by his brother, Harry, who well knew not only HL’s legal skills but also his patriotic nationalism, was included in the government’s delegation to the first round of negotiations with the LTTE in the Bhutanese capital of Thimphu. Those negotiations, despite India’s best efforts, as readers will remember made no headway. The presence of men like HL and S.L. Gunasekera on the government side, though neither could be regarded by any stretch of imagination as UNP, was a sure deterrent to any kind of appeasement to the Tigers that was manifest in later negotiating rounds. It was to the benefit of Sri Lanka, as contemporary developments have so amply demonstrated, that there was no fidelity at least in the Thimphu talks to the Chelvanayakam dictum of ``a little now, more later.’’

More recently H.L. de Silva argued the North – East de-merger case before the Supreme Court. This so-called ``temporary’’ merger was to be tested subsequently by a referendum in the Eastern Province which was destined never to be held was struck down by the court. The determination was based on the argument that the President’s proclamation declaring that the Northern and Eastern Provinces a single administrative unit was not in accord with either condition specified in the relevant law (Section 37 (1) (b) of the Provincial Councils Act No. 42 of 1987). These were the surrender of weapons by the LTTE and the cessation of hostilities that had not been satisfied. ``Therefore the order must necessarily be declared invalid since it infringes the limits which Parliament itself has ordered,’’ the judgment held.

Then there was the so called P-TOMS (Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure) case he argued in July 2005. When counsel for the State urged that the Secretary to the Ministry of Rehabilitation signed the agreement on the authority of the President, H.L. de Silva shot back, ``If so, the President is acting ultra vires.’’ HL’s successful argument was based on the premise that "government functions should not be paralleled by any private bodies." He believed that the defects of the P-TOMS Agreement, had it been approved by the Cabinet and Parliament, could have been avoided and urged that it was "illegal to hand over government functions to non-governmental institutions." The tsunami victims were not suffering for "want of this agreement" which was a "scheme to override the sovereignty of this country."

HL was fond of telling the story of how he in the early sixties drove his DKW into the Beira Lake not because, Lakshman Kadirgamar said, ``he was drunk and disorderly.’’ It happened in blinding rain when the young Crown Counsel, having attended a conference with Finance Minister Felix Dias Bandaranaike drove out of the old Parliament building right into the Beira basin. ``How he got out, whether through a window or a door, I do not know. Swimming was never one of HL’s accomplishments. But get out he did, Houdini-like. Experience in wriggling out through loopholes of the law might have helped! What an unspeakable tragedy it would have been had such a promising legal career perished in the murky waters of the Beira on that rainy day.’’