A society without legal protection is like a body without a backbone fragile and easily broken. The justice system and legal protection are two essential components of society. Legal protection aims to safeguard against unforeseen legal risks and often includes representation in various legal proceedings. Meanwhile a fair and functioning justice system is essential for our social and economic well-being but do people truly happy with these two components in modern democratic State. That’s why this article highlights the role of legal protection in ensuring justice, from its historical roots to modern challenges, focusing on access, human rights, technology and reforms.
Monarchical Era to Modern Era: The Evolution of Legal Protection
The King was the ultimate judicial authority during the monarchical era, when Sri Lanaka judicial system was established, and final appeals were directed to him. With the help of village councils (gam sabhas), officials like korale, dissave and vidane exercised their authority under the Portuguese, who carried on the old Sinhala legal system. Under the Dutch period, the system became more organized, dividing the island into three judicial districts: Colombo, Jaffna and Galle. The British rule further systematized the judiciary, maintaining Roman Dutch Law and allowing appeals to the Privy Council in England until 1972.1 In 1976, the British ousted the Dutch and established a unitary administrative and judicial system, while continuing Roman Dutch Law and customary laws. After the fall of the Kandyan kingdom in 1815, British rule extended Roman Dutch Law to the whole island.2 The Constitution of 1978 and the Judicature Act No.2 of 1978 established the present judicial frameworks such as Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, Provincial High Court, District Court and Magistrate Court. With the 1973 Law of Dispensing Justice, the Supreme Court became the apex body of the country. Additionally, special tribunals were created by Acts of Parliament, such as Labour Tribunals, Quazi Courts, Rent Control Boards and Conciliation Boards to handle specific disputes and provide wider access to justice.3 With the adoption of the Roman Dutch Law legal system, the ratification of the 1978 Constitution, which placed a strong emphasis on fundamental rights,4 and the creation of organizations like the Human Rights Commission (HRCSL) to advance and defend human rights, historical developments in Sri Lanka have influenced the country’s legal protection. Although there are still difficulties in putting these rights into practice, particularly for marginalized groups, these developments guarantee continued legal protection.
Bridging the Gap: Ensuring Legal Protection for All
In this part we explore the meaning of access of justice, what are the barriers people face in accessing justice and what are the ways to access justice for vulnerable people. Life presents every person with challenges. In our society the law matters and yet for many people justice is elusive. Access to justice is a basic principle of rule of law. It means that when people encounter life problems that touch the law, they will be able to understand and assert their rights in a neutral process pursuant to the fair rule of law and enforce the result. In our country we promise equal protection under the Constitution. The promise of equal protection is unfulfilled.5 Legal problems are not limited to a particular category of citizens. However, they often affect certain groups of people more than others such as women, children and disabled persons. Sri Lanka is trying to achieve accountability and reconciliation after a long ethnic war where many serious crimes were committed. The recent economic crisis has made life harder and limited public freedoms. The justice system faces many problems, like long delays in cases, which makes it hard for poor and vulnerable people to get justice. Sri Lanka justice system influenced by its colonial past, struggles with a large number of pending cases, slow procedures and outdated laws. Now we will look what are the barriers that are people facing when accessing justice. The barriers are the complexities of law and process, the inequality between ordinary people and powerful adversaries, the cost of hiring a lawyer, the fear of governmental authority, the belief that the system is biased and rigged against them or against their communities – these and many other barriers stand in the way of justice.6 Access of justice is a fundamental human right that protects individuals from violating their rights. Although every country has a responsibility or duty to ensure the access of justice. So, these are the ways in which a country takes actions to ensure accessibility. One of the most important things about living in a country is awareness and understanding of the legal system and the laws and regulations in place. However, that understanding is considerably lower among the Sri Lanka general public. Second legal aid camps are most crucial way where people to access their justice. It prefers a people-centered justice system and legal service. Third way is public legal education. The people get some knowledge about laws and procedure through this way. But there is no proper mechanism in secondary schools in Sri Lanka to educate students about laws because it is not part of the existing curriculum. Final way is surveys foe legal needs. Surveys of legal needs identify real issues that people face and how they face them.7 While looking at these Sri Lanka needs to improve the existing justice system, resources and human factors to align with that.
Legal Protection as a Pillar of Human Rights
Human rights are not bestowed by any state; rather, they are ours just by virtue of being human. Regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status, we all possess these fundamental rights. They include the most basic-the right to life-as well as those that give life meaning, like the rights to liberty, food, education, employment, and health. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was the first legal document to set out the fundamental human rights to be universally protected. In Sri Lanka, legal protection is a vital, though often challenged, pillar of human rights, primarily established through the Constitution but also supported by institutional and international frameworks. The 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka provides the legal foundation for human rights protections by enshrining a range of fundamental rights in its third chapter. In the 1990s, the Supreme Court gave progressive judgements, even during times of war and uprisings when serious human rights abuses occurred. In 2013, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka showed a mixed approach in protecting human rights. In some cases, like Jayasuriya, the court used past cases like and strong reasoning, while in others, like Jayawardene, it only looked at the facts. The court mostly dealt with equality and freedom from torture but avoided linking its decisions to wider social and political issues. This limited approach reduced the impact of judgments on people’s lives. Overall, the judiciary in 2013 didn’t play a strong role in protecting human rights.8 However, there are some measures taken by our government to safeguard human rights. First, it’s given Constitutionally protection. Sri Lanka is a free, sovereign, democratic republic the 1978 Constitution protects human rights as fundamental rights. Article 4 said all government bodies must respect and protect rights.9 And Article 126 said people can go directly to the Supreme Court for rights violations.10 Second Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka established under Act No.21 of 1996. Its duties are investigating, advises and raises awareness on human rights. Third, there is Human Rights Advisor in Sri Lanka. Senior advisor worked with the UN country team in Sri Lanka. They helped national institutions and civil society to strengthen rights protection. Next there is an Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (2005-2007). It explored ways to strengthen UN presence in Sri Lanka.11 Although there are various measures in Sri Lanka to protect human rights. It can be seen that human rights are in weak legal protection. In our country many laws control people instead of protecting them. There are no strong laws to stop violence and discrimination against women or to value their work. Minority groups face discrimination and justice for past abuses has not been delivered yet (Ex. Semmani incident). Since the Constitution doesn’t protect social and economic rights, people cannot seek justice for daily problems. The recent economic crisis showed that the system mainly serves the rich and political leaders, which is why people protest against it.
The Digital Courtroom: Technology in Legal Protection
Technology, the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life. The Supreme Court in Jayasinghe v AG said that “Justice delayed is justice denied”, showing that court delays stop people from getting justice. Sri Lanka’s courts face a big backlog, and cases take a very long time to finish. These long delays discourage foreign investment, so the government has started major reforms to speed up the justice system and improve access to justice. Covid-19 exposed the weakness of the legal system. Sri Lanka started a major project to digitize courts, supported by the Ministry of Justice and ICTA with funding proposed in the 2022 budget. 13Some laws have been updated to match technology like recognizing computer evidence, electronic payments, cyber-crime laws and limited e-filing-progress.14 Digitizing courts will make litigation cheaper and faster in Sri Lanka. Online submissions and virtual hearings reduce the needs for physical documents and travel.15 Technology has many benefits, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. Digitalizing the legal system is very costly and faces issues like the digital divide. Protecting personal data is very important in digital courts. Personal identifiable information (name, address, phone number) must be kept safe using the CIA model – Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability. Courts records and sensitive information should be secured to prevent hacking or misuse, and contracts must strictly ensure zero breaches with penalties for violations. Compared to other countries, Sri Lanka has made only small steps, and more efforts is needed for full digital transformation of the justice system.
Challenges in Achieving Justice and Reforms
Any just and democratic society must be built on the foundation of justice, yet attaining it is frequently extremely difficult. Delays in court proceedings, corruption, discrimination and disadvantaged groups’ lack of access to justice are problems that legal systems face globally. Similar challenges, such as protected case backlogs and inadequate legal protections, are faced by Sri Lanka’s justice system. By 2019, over 766,000 cases were pending, and today nearly 1 million remain unsolved, with some cases lasting decades. Although a judicial reform programme was launched in 2020 to improve infrastructure automation, and efficiency, progress has been slow and ineffective. Inefficient courts especially hurt the poor and block economic development, since markets depend on secure legal rights. The shortage of judge and outdated court procedures add to the backlog.17 For example, there were 766,000 pending cases but only about 350 judges to hear them. Now a days digitalized court system is improved in Sri Lanka. But it always challenged through hacking and misuse. So, strong judicial reforms are essential for good governance and restoring trust in the system. Judicial reform is essential to ensure that justice keeps pace with society’s progress and meets people’s expectations. Reform should focus not just on technology but also on equipping judges and staff to serve better, ultimately contributing to national stability and development. People want judges who are impartial, ethical, and competent and a system that is modern yet reliable.18 The legal and judicial reforms project aims to make the justice system more efficient, transparent, and responsive to both the public and private sectors. It focuses on three areas. First, improving laws and legal education, training lawyers and judges and creating an online legal information network (LAW NET). Second strengthening the office of the registrar of companies. Finally, supporting judicial training, modernizing the judicial services commission, setting up model courts, and promoting mediator.19 So, these are some reforms to make our judicial system is efficiency.
Conclusion
In conclusion part, we can see that what are the positions of the justice and the legal protection in Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka judicial system’s inaccessibility, inefficiency and delays make it difficult to achieve justice. And also, there is a shortage of the judges is main challenge in our judicial field. Justice is only meaningful if it is timely, equitable and trusted by the people, while reform like knowledge of legal education, digitalization of courts and training offer encouraging answers. Therefore, continued efforts to strengthen judicial independence, efficiency and public trust are essential for building legal protection in our country.
Written By: –
Flora Shirani
Faculty of Law,
University of Colombo
Design By: –
Rtr. Pasan Jithnuka
(Junior Blog Team Member 2025-26)
