Opinion | The Hindu | April 25, 2006
http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/25/stories/2006042504150800.htm
Blame it on Henry II, if you must. It was England's first
Plantagenet King who prepared the ground for the common law system
that replaced the practice of justice being dispensed on the basis
of disparate customs by feudal and county courts. While his bold
reforms in the 12th century led to the creation of a strong and
unified legal framework, the citizenry was expected to treat judges
as if they were nobility and address them with titles such
as "Milord" and "Your Lordship." Old habits are notoriously hard to
break, but it has taken India almost a millennium to dispense with
the use of such archaic and feudal forms when addressing judges. The
Bar Council of India's recommendation that Supreme Court and High
Court judges may now be called "Your Honour" and that those in lower
courts may be addressed as "Sir" (or its equivalent in Indian
languages) paves the way for an usage that is not only contemporary
but one that is in keeping with the Republican character of the
state. The Bar Council was prompted to look into this after the
Supreme Court refused to entertain a petition, filed by a forum of
lawyers, that urged doing away with phrases such as "Your Lordship"
on the ground that such expressions were "relics of the colonial
past" and "smacked of slavery in Independent India." At the same
time, the apex body graciously lobbed the ball back into the court
of the Bar Council, saying the issue of how the judges should be
addressed as "is up to the collective wisdom of the lawyers." The
message: you call us what you think fit.
The portentous honorific "Lordship" is not much in judicial fashion
nowadays. Senior judges in Britain which has possibly invented
more pompous titles than any other country continue to be known
as "Lords." But in many Commonwealth countries (including Australia
and Canada), the relatively unfussy "Your Honour" is the appropriate
appellation. In 1995, South Africa went further by doing away with
both "My Lord" and "Your Honour"; lawyers were directed to restrict
themselves to using "Mr. Justice." Of course, in the United States,
a country that has woven a certain informality into its professional
life, a judge has always been what he or she is: a judge. Archaic
titles and honorifics are used outside the judiciary as well. In
India, the Mayors of cities continue to be addressed as "Worshipful
Mayors" an _expression_ that reeks of feudalism and class privilege.
While such titles exercise a strange fascination over people, it
takes more than a mere honorific to state the obvious to earn
the respect of others. "When I reflect on the pompous titles
bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to
despise the absurdity," wrote Thomas Paine. "The Honorable plunderer
of his country, or the Right Honorable murderer of mankind, create
such a contrast of ideas as exhibit a monster rather than a man."
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