-By LeN Legal affairs Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -30.May.2025, 11.45 PM) When it comes to Sri Lanka’s legal profession, there’s a whiff of hypocrisy thick enough to cloud even the most air-conditioned chambers of Hulftsdorp. For a country with more lawyers per square kilometre than functioning traffic lights, one might assume that the guardians of the law are themselves obedient adherents to it. Alas, that assumption, like a government promise in Sri Lanka, doesn’t quite hold up under scrutiny.
Let us begin with a tale as old as time—or at least as old as legal malpractice in South Asia. Picture this: a citizen walks into a lawyer’s office seeking redress, pays a handsome sum for what can only generously be described as "legal representation," and walks out with a stamped affidavit... but no receipt. No paper trail. Just a gentleman’s agreement, sealed with a tea-stained nod.
In the West, this would be cause for disciplinary action, if not a full-blown inquiry by a Bar Standards Board. In Sri Lanka, it’s Tuesday.
One would imagine that the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL)—an institution prone to issuing thunderous press releases on constitutional violations, judicial independence, and the occasional conspiracy theory—might turn its high-powered magnifying glass on its own members. But curiously, the same legal watchdogs who routinely bark at the Executive, the Judiciary, and each other, seem remarkably house-trained when it comes to internal rot.
Receipts, for instance, are optional—more of a post-colonial suggestion than a legal obligation. The prevailing practice in Colombo’s legal circles is the unrecorded exchange of massive sums of money—fees for bail applications, land deed drafting, divorce settlements, or the always-riveting fundamental rights petitions—all done in cash, often sans invoice, and with the discretion of a Swiss banker.
Under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, and more recently, tightening FATF recommendations, such transactions are not just irregular—they are deeply suspicious. If a bakery, a liquor store, or even a freelance tuk-tuk driver is expected to issue a bill, why not a lawyer charging six figures to shout “Your Lordship” at a High Court judge?
Recently, the duplicity reached diplomatic proportions. A senior Sri Lankan attorney—renowned, decorated, and doubtless flattered by his own CV—submitted a visa application to a Western diplomatic mission. As part of routine checks, he included his bank statements, which painted a picture of prosperous practice: millions of rupees flowing in and out like the Kelani River in monsoon.
But alas, the embassy wasn’t born yesterday. It asked for his tax filings for the past two years, and therein lay the twist in the tale. The tax records showed him to be less a legal eagle and more a financial minimalist—declaring barely enough income to cover the price of his own Hugo Boss tie. The numbers didn’t just fail to add up; they weren’t even doing the same subject. Unsurprisingly, the visa was denied.
This is no isolated case. Whispered across diplomatic canteens and tax auditor briefings is the same question: why are Sri Lanka’s legal elite living like tycoons but declaring like monks?
In most common law countries, a basic principle governs lawyer-client relations: transparency. A client care letter—an official document outlining the scope of work, the expected costs, billing structure, and complaint mechanisms—is standard fare in the UK, Australia, and Canada. It protects both parties and ensures that legal billing does not become legalised looting.
In Sri Lanka, however, the only consistent document you might receive is a slightly wrinkled business card—if that. Legal fees are plucked from thin air, sometimes fluctuating depending on the perceived desperation of the client. Two people could go to the same lawyer for the same service and end up with wildly different quotes, and neither could prove it, because nothing’s in writing.
A modest proposal: if Sri Lanka can publish national procurement guidelines, surely the BASL can muster a recommended fee structure? Or are we to believe that codifying prices would offend the artistic freedom of its barristers?
There is a peculiar Sri Lankan tradition of lawyers moonlighting as Members of Parliament, or rather, MPs moonlighting as lawyers—depending on which side of the public paycheque they’re currently cashing. In most functioning democracies, such dual roles are declared conflicts of interest. After all, how can one be a legislator by day and a private legal consultant by night?
Yet in Sri Lanka, this is not just tolerated—it’s almost celebrated. Some of the loudest voices in Parliament continue to represent clients, draft contracts, and even notarise deeds between committee hearings and parliamentary lunch buffets. Worse, some wield their political muscle to extract favours within the judicial system itself.
Let us not mince words: once an individual is elected to public office, their private legal practice should be suspended—not merely as a matter of decorum, but to prevent exactly the sort of legal-political brokerage that has eroded public trust in both professions.
One area where Sri Lankan lawyers are particularly active is in property transactions—a lucrative domain where black money is laundered in the guise of ancestral land sales and "friendly" transfers. It’s a system riddled with grey areas. Lawyers routinely process deeds worth tens of millions, often without asking questions, documenting suspicious payments, or issuing receipts.
BASL's silence on this front is deafening. The legal profession cannot continue to act as a vehicle for property laundering while simultaneously claiming the high ground of constitutional integrity.
According to informal assessments by Inland Revenue officers and financial crime investigators, as much as 85% of Sri Lankan lawyers under-declare their income. That’s not a statistic—it’s a pandemic. If a profession built on the knowledge of law cannot comply with tax obligations, what hope is there for tuk-tuk drivers and street vendors?
The newly installed NPP government—hell-bent on fiscal reforms and cleaning up institutions—would do well to create a Special Investigation Unit for Legal Sector Income Compliance. The focus should be clear: verify earnings, trace cash transactions, and punish willful under-declaration. If banks can flag unusual deposits from ordinary citizens, they should certainly flag daily six-figure deposits from attorneys claiming to earn LKR 75,000 per month on paper.
Let it be said plainly: Sri Lankan lawyers are not above the law. And if they think they are, perhaps they’ve spent too much time defending politicians.
For all their public posturing, the BASL and its regional chapters have been woefully inadequate in instituting professional self-regulation. It is time for a long-overdue housecleaning.
Here are five basic reforms the BASL must undertake if it is to retain even a shred of public credibility:
Mandatory Receipts: No payment should go undocumented. Issue receipts. Every. Single. Time.
Client Care Letters: Make it obligatory. Let clients know what they’re paying for, and how much.
Published Fee Guidelines: Create a transparent, minimum-maximum fee chart for common legal services.
Tax Compliance Audits: Work with Inland Revenue to identify habitual under-declarers and suspend their licenses until resolved.
Conflict-of-Interest Protocols: No lawyer should be allowed to continue private practice after assuming a political or local government office.
To say that the Sri Lankan legal profession has become complacent would be an understatement. Many of its members have grown fat on impunity, emboldened by weak oversight, a lack of internal discipline, and a culture of protectionism that shields the incompetent as readily as the corrupt.
But this moment—this uncomfortable, corruption-prone, reform-ready moment—presents an opportunity. For once, let the Bar prove that it is not merely an instrument of privilege or a self-serving guild, but a true defender of justice and accountability.
Because the only thing worse than lawlessness is lawlessness sanctioned by the very people who are paid to uphold the law.
And if that doesn’t inspire change, perhaps a tax audit might.
-By LeN Legal affairs Correspondent
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by (2025-05-30 22:51:28)
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