The Bar Council and Mr Karpal Singh's call for 'seniority' to be the main factor in the promotion of judges is outmoded and lamentable. Their 'call' also reveals an unsurprising lack of creativity and datedness in their outlook and solutions to contemporary problems.

To some extent it is understandable they want things back the way they were, hoping perhaps that in turn, things would return to the way it was. However, what the Bar Council and Mr Karpal fail to appreciate is that just by making 'seniority' a main factor in the promotion of judges does not make the promotion of certain judges any more acceptable.

Let's start with this idea of seniority in the first place. When a person is more senior in position than another (in whatever field), it is indicative of several things - the first of which is experience.

Other things are then assumed, like intelligence, wisdom, efficiency, diligence, cooperation with other practitioners in that field, etc (basically good traits) because the thinking is: how else would that senior person get that far up if they were so lacking in all these positive traits? This is a fair assumption to make.

Seniority was therefore equated with all these good traits, and that is why seniority became a barometer for all these good traits. But then humans, being natural at taking things for granted, began to use the concept of seniority as being the indicator of a persons quality of work.

And over time, the traits that were associated with seniority were forgotten and we were left with just this idea of seniority being a 'good thing' even though nobody these days seems to know why.

Having practised in the legal profession for a little while, one comes to realise that seniority is a very outmoded, overrated and crude way of judging how good a lawyer/judge is at their work.

There are some lawyers of at least 20 years in practice without a firm grasp of the law and can be taken out even by a two-year-old lawyer; as there are some judges and other senior judicial officers that are clueless about the matter that they adjudicate or about what to do with the case before them.

What is more, often have those been in practice been frustrated by incompetent judicial officers who have moved up solely because of their seniority when the more competent and diligent ones have to languish in their low positions because they haven't racked up the years.

What the Bar Council and Mr Karpal Singh therefore fail to realise is that seniority is no indication of how good, efficient, diligent and intelligent a lawyer or a judge is. In the realm of the best and the brightest, seniority is and should be an irrelevant consideration.

To therefore call for seniority to be reinstated as the primary guide for the elevation of judges is a step back. What they should be calling for is for the judiciary to appoint and elevate only the best and the brightest (never mind how senior they are).

They should be calling for a thorough revamp and even make proposals for the introduction of a rigorous assessment of each judicial candidates' intellectual, moral, legal and professional background with consultations from all the relevant parties.

It is not a question of 'justice for judges'. It is about bringing back the integrity and vitality to the judiciary as a whole, which would bring justice for all.