Name: Chamli Kumaranatunga

“Justice is impartial,” Chamli Kumaranatunga’s first-year professor told him and his fellow eager-eyed students. Chamli agreed with him wholeheartedly. That was precisely the reason why he dreamed of becoming a judge and why he was so excited when his hard work paid off, and he was accepted into the Intergalactic Academy of Law.

“Justice is impartial.” The Honourable Chamli Kumaranatunga said to the collective delegation who had aggressively insulated that he had broken his judicial oath moments ago. As exasperated as they were unwelcome, his guests began a third time to explain their request. War was coming, and every citizen needed to play their part in defense of Laruta. Chamli’s part, they informed him, was to rule in favor of a very unconstitutional motion to skip months of legal back and forth and go straight to sentencing in a mass trial for a group of political prisoners.

Chamli interrupted them before they could get to the end of the third repeat of their speech. He didn’t want even to hear the suggestion again that he not only violated their rights to a fair trial but that he ruled them guilty and gave them expedited death sentences. “Justice is impartial.”

They paused for a frustrated breath and began again only to have him cut them off in the first sentence. “Justice is impartial.” Chamli stood and walked to the door, opening it with a “Good day to you.” His unwanted guests left him with a warning. They would forget his insolence today if he did what was asked of him in court.

He didn’t.

Now he sat not in his comfortable study surrounded by his books but in a prison cell, surrounded by the prisoners whose lives he’d saved the day before. He had never regretted his choice to stand up for what he believed in, though after arriving in prison and meeting those unfairly condemned, he was proud of what he’d done. The scene he’d made in court had made it through the propaganda machine, and the collective wouldn’t be able to rush a new sham trial in the near future without causing a PR disaster.

A young rebel prisoner interrupted a lively discussion Chamli was having with some of their leaders to thank him and ask him why he stood up for them. Those surrounding him smiled knowingly to each other before joining him to say in unison... “Justice is impartial.”