A group of lawyers have taken Bar Council president Yeoh Yang Poh and several officer bearers of the Malaysian Bar to task over their alleged unprofessional conduct in dealing with the Kuala Lumpur High Court's decision to declare current officer bearers invalid.

The lawyers expressed their dissatisfaction in a notice of requisition for a general meeting to discuss and subsequently pass 11 motions which include the calling for the censure of Yeoh, three other officer bearers and immediate past president Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari.

The notice signed by 50 lawyers as required under section 65(2) of the Legal Profession Act 1978 was submitted to the council on Tuesday.

The act allows "any 50 members of the Malaysian Bar to request a general meeting via a written notice".

Requisition notice invalid

However, Yeoh claimed that five out of the 50 lawyers had retracted their approval hence rendering the requisition notice invalid.

"We had planned to discuss the matter at the council meeting on Saturday and that hasn't change. We will still discuss the issues raised in the notice and subsequently decide whether a general meeting is warranted or otherwise," he said when contacted today.

Asked if he was aware of the growing dissatisfaction, Yeoh admitted that several lawyers had openly expressed their displeasure with the council's decision to appeal against the ruling.

"But then there are also members who openly supported the decisions and actions that the council made following the High Court ruling," he said.

Yeoh also informed that there will be a closed-door forum for members of the Bar today to discuss the issues.

"We want to hear the views and dissatisfaction of members on this matter and will try to explain to members (why the notice of appeal was filed)," he said.

On May 27, High Court judge Raus Sharif declared that the 59th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Malaysian Bar 'null and void' due to the absence of quorum.

He made the ruling when allowing the application of senior lawyer Louise Edward Van Buerle who took the Bar Council to task for contravening the one-fifth quorum requirement stated in the LPA.

The court, however, allowed a stay of execution of its decision which also nullified the appointment of office bearers.

A copy of the requisition notice which was made available to malaysiakini revealed that the dissatisfied lawyers were seeking a meeting "for the proper management of the affairs of the Malaysian Bar and for the proper performance of its functions under the said act."

They also motioned that the current council, that was convened at the 59th AGM and declared null and void, be disbanded and replaced by interim office bearers until a proper AGM is conducted.

Withdraw appeal notice

They asked that the current principal office bearers including Yeoh, Ambiga Sreenevasan, Ragunath Kesavan and Vazeer Alam Akhbar as well as Khutubul be censured for, among others:

  • engaging in obdurate and wilful conduct for conflict of interest; in that their unilateral and unauthorised action in lodging a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal, without first convening and obtaining the consent of the Bar Council and thereby placing themselves in a position of conflict
  • for attempting to preserve their private positions as office bearers when they ought to have honourably yielded up their office and convened a proper annual general meeting when the ruling was handed down
  • failing to immediately hand over the affairs of the Bar to the previously (2004) constituted Bar Council following the ruling
  • failing, at a Bar Council meeting dated 11.06.2005, to address the ramifications of the ruling and for brazenly continuing to hold their official positions, sweeping aside any proper discussion of the ruling with a view to regularise the position of the Malaysian Bar and its business and for the proper performance of the Malaysian Bar's functions
  • for issuing various statements in internet discussion forums without any legal basis at all
  • for disregarding the sub-judice rule, placing at the official Malaysian Bar web-site, a 'counter' with the question as to whether one 'agreed with' the ruling - a conduct which brought the Bar into disrepute and that could be construed as in utter contempt of court.

The petitioners also sought for the notice of appeal to be withdrawn as the decision was made without proper consultation with members of the Bar.

Other issues highlighted in the notice include the legal costs incurred from the appeal against the ruling which the petitioners claimed ought to be fully borne by the current members of the council "who had no business in appointing legal representation in the first place".