BAR Council: Make Your Voice Valuable

The recent fiasco of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi had welcomed many NGOs to speak, and eventually brought up to the existance of a very strong opposition during his reign as the number one premier. I am not saying it is bad, but actually it has prosper the wisdom of total democracy to be practiced in this country. nevertheless, in marching into this so called democracy pathway, we shall behave according to law and morality, as respect to the rights of other people in nature. and of course, to defend the constitution.

Contrary to what is supposed to be done by a legal body such as BAR Council (Majlis Peguam), they are inviting threats to the national security, I must say. Lately there was a forum conducted by the BAR, which is the social contract, where by the body clearly stressed out that the Malay privilages might want to be abolished. despite of their sincererity of whether this special privilages must continue to exist or not, what is a forum to be significant since the motion of the debate was tasked and “judged” by themselves respectively? And this week, the BAR once again made a controversial movement by proposing to have a forum entitled the conversion to Islam, and apprehend to discuss about the significance of 121(1A) to be reviewed back since it has been a barrier to both jurisdiction namely the civil and syariah court.

Ironically, the issue of whether this article should be the subject matter of a discussion, especially when it come from a legal body providing lawyers such as BAR, to have a discussion of whether this law should be in enforcement or not, is it in their vicinity of concern? the judges does not even plug a word regarding this issue. the present law is adequate enough to uphold the current circumstances, as it does not intefere both jurisdiction, neither syariah nor the civil.

If BAR were to question out their disagreement regarding the verdict given by the Syariah that does not even favour the non-muslim parties, I would like to ask BAR, that are the Muslims even agree with the decision given by the Civil court in the first place? Is there any provision in Islam stating that the punishment for an illegal possession of ammunation or weapon could amount the wrong doer to death penalty? But what can the Muslim do to against this unfair law? since the constitution has been a fundemental law of this land, we have no choice except to abide it. what do BAR council expect when they want this 121(1A) to be reviewed back? so lets shut down this constitution and replace it with a combination of syariah law that only applies to the Muslim and civil law that only applies to the non-Muslim respectively. Is Datuk Ambiga, the President of BAR council is here to answer my question?

I read a book, not actually a book but rather a piece of pamplet written by a lawyer, Matthias Chang, challenging Datuk Ambiga, to have a public debate since she was defending the untrue allegation without basis made by Justice Datuk Ian Chin.

Well basically I feel that Justice Ian Chin is not suppose to disclose such statement since he made shame to the Bench (Brothers of Judges, I supposed). He previously alleged that former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made a threat against the judiciary, despite of the information I got that, Ian Chin actually did not agree with the appointment of Richard Malanjum, to become the Chief Judge of Sabah And Sarawak, as he feels that he was supposed to get promoted to the seat and not Malanjum. suprisingly, Datuk Ambiga was in the view that Justice Ian Chin was true, before Ian Chin retracted his statement and consequently cause harm to the Bench.

This brings up a very clear view that the BAR council is trying to fight for the judiciary, well a very good of that, but looking at this fiasco, the BAR seems like to support any motion against the government, regardless of whether it was made with or without basis.

I hope the BAR council will make their voice valuable in the future and continue its objective of being an NGO body. play our part as an NGOs and behave like one. we are not a political body i must say. the capacity for being an NGOs has much better advantage rather than being a political body. if BAR were to present themselves as a political body, donot stand by the BAR council’s name. Go and join UMNO or DAP or PKR or maybe PAS. BAR council mustn’t be political instituted.

If this institution is some sort of government formated, or maybe cabinet constituted, and Datuk Ambiga is likely to act as the Prime Minister of the BAR, she should has resign by now.

Filed under: BAR Council