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‘Vulnerable to judicial stress, under the robes of judges are human beings’
View(s):- SC’s Justice Janak De Silva talks of silent mental health battles being fought not just in the chambers of judges but also by students subjected to ragging in universities
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
Two separate but crucial issues, judicial stress and brutal ragging in universities, came under the gavel when a Supreme Court Judge looked at them up close on Friday morning.
“Judges in their chambers and students in their hostels might seem worlds apart, but the common thread is this: mental health is not a luxury – it is a right. In both courts and campuses, we are fighting silent battles – unspoken depression, repressed trauma, systemic neglect and psychiatrists are not just treating individuals. You are safeguarding the conscience of our nation,” said Judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Janak De Silva.
Addressing the inauguration of the 22nd Annual Academic Sessions of the Sri Lanka College of Psychiatrists, on the topic ‘Minds That Matter – From Courtrooms to Universities’, Justice De Silva first spotlighted the need for judicial well-being.
Justice Janak De Silva. Pic by Akila Jayawardena
He said: “Under the robes of judges are human beings – vulnerable, overworked and often isolated due to the demands of office. We often imagine judges as stoic, wise, unshakeable figures, armed with gavels and an unflinching sense of right and wrong. They have to face the crossfire of stressors on a daily basis from distressing case content to hostile media and public criticism sometimes lacking awareness of the true facts and the correct legal position.”
Much is spoken about justice being blind – but rarely about justice being stressed, isolated or emotionally burdened. Judges, by the very nature of their office, are expected to embody impartiality, wisdom and resilience. But they are also human. They endure long hours, harrowing decisions, public scrutiny and often a deep sense of solitude, he said with poignancy.
Citing recent research on judicial stress in Australia, Justice De Silva said 52.9% of judges had reported levels of distress in the ‘moderate to very high ranges’ and 30.4% of judges had scored in the range suggestive of likely post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), compared with the 12-month population prevalence of PTSD of 4.4%.
Similar patterns that judicial officers experienced elevated occupational stress, symptoms of burnout and secondary trauma, had also been seen in other studies including the 2024 Judicial Attitudes Survey of the United Kingdom and Justice De Silva said, “In South Asia, we are not immune. Our judicial system is under constant pressure: backlog of cases, limited resources, public scrutiny and the emotional burden of decision-making.”
He requested the audience to imagine having to decide daily which parent loses custody of a child, which child gets the property of the deceased parents, who goes to prison, how much should a person be paid for serious injuries suffered due to an accident or whether the termination of the services of an employee is just and equitable. Judges are expected to carry the burden of others’ traumas, while suppressing their own. The robes do not come with armour.
This was why the UN General Assembly had voted in March this year, in favour of a resolution led by Nauru and co-sponsored by 70 countries, to declare July 25 as the International Day for Judicial Well-being. Among the seven principles in the Nauru Declaration on Judicial Well-being is that judicial stress is not a weakness and must not be stigmatised.
Shifting his focus to ragging in academic institutions, Justice De Silva, while stressing that if the judiciary shapes the rules of society, the university shapes its citizens, called it a “national shame” that brilliant young minds enter universities with dreams and too often leave with scars.
“I once heard a student say, ‘Ragging taught me to be strong.’ That’s like saying drowning teaches you how to swim. No – it teaches you how to choke. Ragging is not character-forming. It is, in most cases, structured humiliation, coercive conformity, and sometimes, outright psychological and physical abuse,” he said, urging a ‘cultural shift’ in the seats of higher learning – where seniors earn respect through mentorship not fear, where human dignity replaces inferiority complexes and where human love drowns the screams of the fiends.
Reiterating that ragging in any form is not ‘team-building’ and must be condemned in the strongest terms and it is not a rite of ‘passage’ but of ‘pain’, he pointed out that more than a quarter of a century after the enactment of the Prohibition of Ragging and Other Forms of Violence in Educational Institutions Act No. 20 of 1998, “we still continue to hear stories – some whispered, some screamed – of brutalisation in the name of ragging”.
Justice De Silva sent out a strong call for multi-pronged reforms: institutional accountability where universities must be held responsible, not just students; legal action where the Prohibition of Ragging and Other Forms of Violence in Educational Institutions Act No. 20 of 1998 is not used just as a deterrent but as a declaration of zero tolerance; and having mental health first responders in campuses, trained peer support and anonymous complaint channels.
Advocate publicly. Speak not just in journals but on media platforms, Justice De Silva urged the psychiatrists. “We need the psychiatric voice in public policy. We need research that links public systems to psychological outcomes. And most of all, we need the courage to speak where silence has ruled for too long.”
Pointing out that mental health does not belong in the shadows of the clinic but in Parliament, in courthouses, in lecture halls, in families, he added that we should build a Sri Lanka where justice is not a burden, but a joy; where education is not a trauma, but a triumph; and where mental health is not whispered, but celebrated.
(Please visit for the full text of Justice Janak De Silva’s speech on ‘Minds That Matter – From Courtrooms and Universities’)
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