As the Bar Council's chairperson, Mah Weng Kwai is expected to articulate the position of more than 10,000 lawyers in this country on issues affecting human rights or the law with coherence, consistency and professional dignity.

I am disappointed that he has failed to rise up to the occasion at least twice, when he subsequently contradicted and retracted his initial public statements. He should think deeper and clearer before making any public comments on important issues of the day.

The first occasion was when former attorney-general Abu Talib Othman was appointed Suhakam chairperson. Mah's first reaction was to express the Bar Council's congratulations without reservations.

When criticised, Mah immediately changed the Bar Council's stand to that of expressing "grave concern" because of Abu Talib's controversial and well-known position on issues such as the Internal Security Act 1960 (supporting the legislation) as well as his tenure as attorney-general.

The same rapid flip-flop characterised Mah's articulation of the Bar Council's stand on the Federal Court 's dismissal of ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's appeal.

His immediate response to the Federal Court dismissal was to endorse it, albeit indirectly, by saying that he believed that the court would have set aside Anwar's conviction if it had found any improprieties in the proceedings of the lower courts, and that if Anwar's supporters, the reformasi group or the public felt that the court had been unfair, the general election was the best avenue for them to show their discontent.

Upon being rapped by Lim Kit Siang for talking like a Barisan Nasional minister, and against mounting public criticism, Mah has now effected another turnabout to diffuse criticism by saying several irregularities previously highlighted in the trial and the irregular rulings made by the trial judge in Anwar's corruption case did not justify the Federal Court's surprising decision to dismiss his appeal.

It is already bad that Mah made a quick turnabout that leads to the irresistible inference that he did not know what he was talking about in the first time when he indirectly endorsed the Federal Court decision.

It becomes worse if his turnabout statement — that irregularity at trial level did not justify the Federal Court's dismissal of the appeal — sounds like legalese that is incomprehensible at first reading.

If Mah now wants to make a considered statement to rectify his earlier gaffe, he should do so in plain, simple and direct English that we can all understand — like for example, that the Federal Court decision in dismissing the appeal is not justified because of several irregularities previously highlighted in the trial below, and not the other indirect way around that the irregularities do not justify the Federal Court decision!

The main issue is whether the Federal Court decision is in the opinion of the Bar Council justified in law having regard to irregularities of trial below. It should not be phrased indirectly as an issue whether irregularities or otherwise of the trial below can ever justify or not justify the Federal Court's decision.

By saying that irregularities in the trial below did not justify the Federal Court decision, the effect is that Mah focused more attention to the trial judge's several irregularities thereby failing to directly convey, with appropriate nuance, the Bar's position on the regularity or irregularity of the Federal Court judges' decision.

It may well be just semantics if either way, it is just a matter of direct or indirect speech, and taken by Mah to mean the same thing. But, in nuance, it is not the same thing in terms of communicating one's position of strong approval or disapproval of something or at someone. The way it is said is as important as what is said.

The position of honourable members of the Malaysian Bar should be anchored on principles of law and public interest, unmoved by the shifting currents of public sentiments.

My main gripe is that in articulating the Bar's position, its chairperson should be more decisive and less prevaricating.

He should not vacillate from one position to another depending on whether there is public criticism, much less try to counter public criticism by coming up with an indirect and convoluted statement that seeks to both appease the public and yet not appear too critical of the Federal Court lest its judges may be offended.

The Bar Council president's role becomes very complicated if Mah endeavours to not only be a Barisan Nasional minister, as Lim kit Siang alleged, but a general political acrobat to balance and meet, all at the same time, the conflicting demands of different constituencies — reformasi supporters, Federal Court judges, members of the Bar, etc. — by the use of such indirect and ambivalent legal speak that firstly we common folks cannot grasp straightway on first reading, and secondly, we may even perceive that the Bar Council has not actually taken any position from the language of the position stated.