Section 46(a) of the Legal Profession Act 1976 sets two disqualifications to membership of Bar Council and its committees. The first disqualifies lawyers who practise for periods of less than the aggregate of seven years; the second, against those who are already elected representatives of Parliament or state assembly or holding office in political party or trade union.

Lawyer Rasamani Kandiah told malaysiakini that section 46(A) was necessary because the Bar Council should not be led by inexperienced lawyers and those with political interests.

Whilst I agree with Kandiah that the second disqualification (against political affiliation) may be plausible, the same cannot hold true for the first that militates against those with less than seven years' practice experience.

The second disqualification is comparatively more defensible if one proceeds from the standpoint that it is as important for the Malaysian Bar as the judiciary to not only be independent, but also be seen to be so.

When a person holding dual official positions in a political party and the Bar Council articulates a particular stand on a public issue common to both the Malaysian Bar and the political party, the problem is that the Bar Council may, in public view, be implicated as being influenced by, and used as a mouthpiece to lend support to the political agenda of the political party.

In contrast, the arguments of senior lawyers against junior representation at Bar Council/Committee are, in my opinion, implausible if not disingenuous.

What is so important about having seven years' continuous practice experience as a benchmark? For that, one has to ask the more precise question what is the nature of experience of which at least seven years of it is necessary as a rational differentia to qualify for office in Bar Council/Committee(s)?

If it were an issue of experience in the law, it cannot be measured entirely by number of years of practice. For example, how experienced is a lawyer of 20-year practice who specialises his entire career in only one or two areas of law as compared to (say) a lawyer of five or six years' all-round practice over varied areas of law?

Next, the contemporary importance and relevance of the area of law in which a person specialises even for a period less than seven years have also to be considered.

In today's information age, intellectual property law on patent and copyrights is the 'in' thing and younger lawyers more commonly specialise in this area compared to senior lawyers who more often than not cannot even use the personal computer!

Surely there is much to be contributed by younger lawyers specialising in these fields sitting in the Bar Council or its various committees to articulate issues of intellectual property law, when the entire country is going IT and electronic.

It is also anomalous to accept that once a qualified lawyer is called to the Bar he is deemed competent enough to represent a client charged for murder and to defend his life, and yet not be deemed experienced enough to hold office in Bar Council/Committees or to interface appropriately with senior judicial or government officers.

If the seven-year practice experience were the benchmark demarcating adequate from inadequate experience in the law, wouldn't it be anomalous of the present system to appoint magistrates and sessions court president of less than seven years' experience (whether in private practice or AG's Chambers) to whom senior lawyers have to submit their points of law?

If experience has reference to experience in private practice for seven years or more, then even some of our senior judges recruited from AG's Chambers will not qualify to be elected in the Bar Council in the event that they retire from the Bench to join the Bar.

The word 'experience' may however be also used to express that of maturity and experience in life. Now that is a grey area because neither chronological age nor length of professional practice is accurate indicia of sagacity, grace or wisdom.

Industrial law expert P Kuppusamy took the patronising view that junior council members might not be able to earn the respect of public and judiciary, since council members have to deal with senior government and judicial officials.

Talking about experience and maturity in life, what has that got to do with seven years' continuous practice experience? For some, even 10 or 15 years may not suffice.

Besides, there are people out there who have worked 20 years in government departments or private sector before they read law and qualify. Are we saying here that a lawyer with less than seven years practice experience - but who have earlier held senior positions in government service or private corporations for 25 years - lack experience and maturity in handling senior government or judicial officers?

It is also possible that we don't need representatives of the Bar Council to handle senior government or judicial officers too well when the latter are out of line.

The case in point is the current dissatisfaction of some senior members of the Bar with the way three judges were promoted after they had presided over Anwar's case.

They cannot even bring themselves to say that the judiciary's independence might be otherwise perceived compromised. They have to get into false arguments of whether seniority or merits are more important as criteria of promotion.

They cannot even call a spade a spade because being more 'experienced' they have to juggle between the imperatives of the need for judicial independence on one hand, and the need to not to be too forthright in order to maintain cordial and good relations with the chief justice and pre-empt a charge of contempt on the other hand.

At least we are assured that the young, imbued with idealism, may not know better of diplomacy and double talk, are less likely to compromise, and may be more prepared to call a spade a spade for the sake of public interest.

On the subject of public interest, it is also difficult to believe that all those who campaign for official positions in the Bar Council and committee do so to champion the laudable purposes of the Malaysian Bar as stated in Section 42 of the Legal Profession Act.

There are private interests canvassed here. For some, positions in Bar Council provide an opportunity for a public profile and constitute an important source for networking with members of public and judiciary, which is good for enhancing professional credentials and business.

Now there is nothing wrong in pursuing of one's professional and business development but it ought not be at the expense of younger lawyers under false pretensions and crooked arguments that their disqualification is good for the interest of the Malaysian Bar and the public interests.

Finally, how could senior doyens of the Bar Council be seen to stand for a democratic cause if they support section 46A that denies junior lawyers representing 75 percent of the 10,500 Malaysian Bar a right to be elected in and hold positions within the Bar Council?

This I find irreconcilable.