The passing of a judge is not merely the departure of a person from the temporal world; it is the moment when the jurisprudential legacy of a judicial mind returns to institutional memory.
The recent demise of Justice Dr Eurico Santana Da Silva, retired Judge of the High Court of Bombay at Goa, has reopened reflection on the invisible ways in which the voice of a judge continues to shape the law, even long after robes are folded and gavels fall silent.
Justice Da Silva’s death occurred nearly three decades after his retirement in 1995. Yet, the collective memory of the Bar and Bench in Goa recalls a man whose sense of duty, interpretive precision, and legal discipline remain exemplary. His name has been evoked not for any recent pronouncement but for the quality of judicial thought that continues to pervade the structure of reasoning in the courts he once served.
This phenomenon is not unique to him. It reflects a larger truth—that the legacy of a judge does not conclude upon retirement, nor does it cease upon death. It endures as long as law is interpreted.
Judicial reasoning, when authored in clarity and applied with restraint, does not retire. It becomes absorbed into the living corpus of law. A well-reasoned judgment finds its place in textbooks, law reports, and appellate arguments. It is cited by junior lawyers and tested by Senior Advocates. Its principles are revisited, reframed, and reasserted in different contexts.
In this way, every judge leaves behind a jurisprudential footprint, not only by what is said but by how it is said. In Justice Da Silva’s case, the emphasis on clarity, brevity, and principled adjudication has been inherited subtly but indelibly by the very institution he once upheld.
The shaping of legal tradition is not solely found in landmark decisions. Often, the legacy of a judge is defined by a consistent judicial temperament. In Justice Da Silva’s tenure, restraint in tone, an unwavering sense of decorum, and the primacy of legal reasoning over personal opinion were hallmarks of his courtroom. Such discipline does not go unnoticed by peers or juniors. It enters the judicial conscience through observation and imitation.
Long after a judge retires, these unwritten codes of conduct are passed down informally but with no less authority. The next generation of judges and Advocates, knowingly or otherwise, replicate these standards. In this transmission, the soul of judicial tradition is preserved.
It is to be remembered that judicial legacy also extends beyond the courtroom. After retirement, Justice Da Silva continued to serve the public in institutional roles that demanded fairness, independence, and moral clarity. As Chairperson of the Goa State Police Complaints Authority, he was tasked with overseeing grievances involving serious misconduct by law enforcement personnel. This post-retirement appointment was not merely honorary. It exemplified a continued trust in his judgement, impartiality, and legal acumen. Such roles remind the public that the service of a judge does not end with retirement; it simply transforms into a different mode of civic responsibility.
Within the judiciary, death is marked not merely by condolence but by reflection. Traditionally, Court references are conducted to recall the contribution of the deceased judge to the fabric of law. These proceedings are neither symbolic nor ceremonial alone. They form part of an institutional ritual to acknowledge that jurisprudence is a collective endeavour built over time by individual minds.
In such moments, the institution remembers not only the judge, but the interpretive choices, the legal doctrines, and the ethical conduct associated with that individual.
When Justice Da Silva passed away at his Ancestral home in Margao, not only his family and friends mourned, but the legal fraternity in Goa also paused to introspect and remember a custodian of law whose commitment to justice continues to speak in silence.
There is something sacred in the fact that judges do not write for themselves but for the law. Their audience is not confined to litigants of the moment but includes jurists of the future. In this manner, the values they champion: fair hearing, equal treatment, fidelity to statute, and deference to precedent, outlive their own lives. These values, once entrenched in judgments, pleadings, and references, become difficult to extinguish. The jurisprudence shaped by Justice Da Silva, though not always loudly cited, has quietly influenced the tone and tenor of judicial functioning in Goa.
To ponder the death of a judge is, therefore, to engage with the endurance of the legal tradition itself. The question is not when a judge dies, but whether a judge ever truly ceases to guide the law.
The act of “laying down the robe” is a symbolic expression, marking the end of a judge’s official function. In spirit, it remains draped over the shoulders of the judiciary.
In Justice Da Silva’s case, the institution has not lost a retired judge; it has inherited a jurisprudential legacy. That legacy rests not in stone but in the logic of judgments, the manner of reasoning, and the standards of public duty left behind.
The law does not forget those who helped interpret it with clarity and conviction.
When a judge dies, it is not the echo that fades, but the voice that endures quietly, judicially, and forever within the institution.
