The Bar Is In Council

The Bar Council is in the midst of choosing  its leadership again.  The good thing about the Bar is that they change their leaders often, every two years max. In this aspect I salute the Bar. The Bar does not have this president for life, Ketum for Life, Mursyid for life, secretary general for life and chairman for life situations.  We seriously need to cap the tenure of the Prime Minister to two terms.

The Bar Council  also claims to be fiercely independent.  This claim can be fiercely disputed. The Bar is overwhelmingly pro Opposition and has developed a clear political position – anti establishment and anti ruling gomen. Considering the crap that the ruling gomen is putting out the Bar Council’s anti gomen stance is understandable.

But it is the Bar’s blind pro Opposition stance that is confusing them substantially. The perception is that the Bar Council loves blindly anything that is anti gomen. The recent case of Gopal Sri Ram being appointed that fellow’s legal counsel in the appeal stands out like a sore thumb. The Bar had passed its own resolution or something condemning retired judges or ex judges appearing as counsel in Court. But in the case of Gopal Sri Ram the Bar went hypocritically quiet. Just because the case involved the Rear Admiral.  Omissions and commissions were in action.

Here is a question for the Bar – is it ok then if retired or ex judges (including Gopal Sri Ram) appeared for the gomen?

I was in a recent discussion with a lawyer friend of mine and a strong upholder of the Quran (that’s the type of folks you really want to have around ok)  Mansoor Saat.  I got to grill Mansoor because he is running for one of the Bar Council Member seats this year.

 Mansoor Saat

Of course being a lawyer Mansoor was defensive of the Bar but he also agrees that the Bar Council must take a more balanced stand for the long run credibility of the Bar. Mansoor’s fear is that the public may end up not taking the Bar Council seriously.

Mansoor is also concerned at the increasing creep of religion into the legal system. (Folks, I have been warning about the creep of religion and the religious creeps for a long time).  Mansoor agrees with me (because I was insisting on this) that when it comes to religious issues, some legal practitioners, including folks like the Muslim Lawyers Association are often unable to look at issues from a purely legal perspective. Often they are not objective. “When it comes to the Law, we need certainty” says Mansoor. We cannot have large areas of grey or unending controversies that arise AFTER a religious edict has been passed.

Being a student of the Quran, a lawyer and a senior Rotarian, Mansoor feels that our Federal Constitution is consistent with the spirit of the Quran.  “The Federal Constitution should be our ‘grundnorm’” says Mansoor.  

"Grundnorm" is a German word meaning "fundamental norms." The jurist and legal philosopher Hans Kelsen coined the term to refer to the fundamental norm, order or rule of law. Our Federal Constitution is our fundamental law. 

Although the Bar Council are not religious experts, Mansoor feels that this should not prevent the Bar from visiting religious issues or syariah issues from a perspective of delivering justice and upholding human rights.This becomes more relevant when the 'religious creep' is encroaching into more of the grey areas.

One more area where I appreciate Mansoor's views, over which the Bar Council has not shown too much gumption, is the area of libel and defamation involving public figures. Public figures, especially the politicians, should not be afforded the same amount of protection from defamation and libel as ordinary Mr Man in the Street.

Public figures especially politicians depend on the public for their periuk nasi. They are constantly harrassing the public with, 'you can trust me, you must put your faith in me, you must believe me' and all sorts of crap. The only thing they dont say is 'you can worship me'. But even there the Rear Admiral's wife declared him an Anugerah Tuhan.

So when they have to jual ubat like this for their periuk nasi, the public should be allowed to throw eggs, shoes and dirty towels at the politicians.  But the moment they dont like what you say they slam you with multi million Ringgit libel and defamation suits. They become momma boys and baby cries.

The Bar Council too needs 'grundnorm'