I have now experienced, regrettably, after some 30 years of being involved in and with the legal profession, on both sides of the proverbial divide (the judiciary and the Bar), the single most predictable outcome of a legal dispute.

I am amazed that those in the know, those who judge, those few who take upon themselves the mantle of determining what is good for the many, have failed, once again, to see the trees for the forest. Talk about burying a head in the sand!

Surely the statements of de facto law minister Rais Yatim, disseminated around the world, had brought to a head, and officially confirmed what had been troubling and was a canker in the side of the Malaysian judiciary. And what of the rest of the stuff that followed and the Bowman papers?

There was in the Bar's move to resolve Chief Justice Eusoff Chin fiasco a determination and desire to restore the jaded and tainted image of the Malaysian judiciary. Was that wrong? Was it not obvious? Could the powers-to-be not see, or sense, or hear, the rumblings that have been going on for so long? Was it necessary to shelter behind minor technicalities and thereby prevent a vested right to speak? Was it so necessary to deny the obvious?

I was one, of many I am sure, who wrote to the Bar Council asking for an opportunity for a public debate on the status of an institution that is vital to the well-being of Malaysia. I find it shocking, and amazing, that one person, has been able to silence the many. I recognise anyone's, including lawyer K. Raja Segaran's right to disagree with views that may, or may not (he was premature in speculating), have been expressed at the Bar's EGM.

If he was so concerned, in his personal capacity, that he may have faced prosecution for seditious remarks made at that EGM, he was at liberty to attend that meeting and declare at the very outset that he was so stating. He could then have, at any subsequent prosecution, pleaded his innocence and disassociated himself from any resolution passed or decision made at that EGM that went contrary to his views. I would have defended him for free.

He could also have, and this would have been preferable and certainly laudable, attended the EGM and skillfully and ably stated his views and swayed the Bar to his viewpoint, whatever that may be. But he had no right to take away from me and deny me my right to attend and speak, if I so chose. He was neither my nor the Bar's guardian. I can look after myself and so can the Bar.

This attempt to muzzle and thereby deny a right to free speech is one I will never endorse. I have a right to agree or disagree with any view, to assess a situation and thereafter make a considered decision, to state my stand and thereafter through cogent, valid, sound and persuasive arguments convince others to my viewpoint. And if I fail I can live with that outcome. So has everybody else.

Just as I recognise Raja Sekaran's right to disagree, he has to learn to respect and leave me my rights. He has no right to step onto my turf and dictate to me what he thinks I ought to think or say. Justice R. K. Nathan's decision has allowed the will of one to be imposed upon the many and thereby made the judiciary, and the judge, the unwitting censor in a matter involving itself.

Therein, to those who care to note, lies the tragedy in this farce.


MANJEET SINGH DHILLON is former president of the Malaysian Bar Council