I find the recent debate on the propriety of conduct of Bar Council chairperson Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari in the Bar Council elections rather amusing and misguided.

This was due to various feel-good phrases being used - principles, upholding justice, constitution, the law, acting without fear or favour, etc. Don't get me wrong, I am all for the above but I think that lawyers and the Bar Council should not fool themselves or have the illusion of grandeur - that they are doing something important for the advancement of their fellow humankind, justice, human rights, blah, blah, blah...

While all of you bicker as to who should sit in the council and make half-hearted attempts to protect, promote and defend human rights - the human rights condition in the country is steadily worsening.

What irks me the most is that the Bar Council has this annoying habit of not cooperating with others for fear that their 'independence' will be affected. Surely if the Bar Council is principled enough in their dealings with others, its independence can still be maintained. But no! The Bar Council guards it so jealously to the effect that more often than not, they go at an issue on their own - see the preventive detention campaign for example.

The Bar Council must do more! Forums, memoranda, literature are fine. But that should not be all. All these form of actions are "safe" and do not challenge the perpetrators of human rights. For a change, can I suggest that instead of selling stickers and lapel pins for the preventive detention campaign - habaes corpus applications are filed for the release of the detainees.

Instead of having another forum on how terrible the police are behaving, some lawyers or the Bar Council could actually provide legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses at all levels - not just - "Oh, I can be counsel in a civil suit".

I think to be able to claim that you are a human rights lawyer (of course, not all lawyers claim that but to those who do) - you have to do a little bit more, for example, going to the police station when the victim is arrested, going into remand proceedings or accompanying demonstrators when they are confronting the police - because if you don't know this already, this is when the human rights abuses happen.

Instead of organising another Malaysian-Singaporean-Bar-Bench sporting activity, may I suggest that the Bar Council organises a consultation with NGOs as to how both sides can actually complement each other in the interest of human rights.

As food for thought, just read two recent articles from malaysiakini - 'Bar Council given a week to explain no-show at inquests' and 'Bar gets tough, starts 'No Detention Without Trial' campaign'.