The Bar Council's office bearers were today allowed by the Court of Appeal to execute their daily responsibilities until a bid to overturn a ruling that declared the Bar's 59th annual general meeting as invalid is disposed off.

The court allowed the council to remain after it granted the Bar's application for a stay of execution pending the outcome of its appeal to the Federal Court.

Justices Denis Ong, Abdul Aziz Mohamed and James Foong unanimously agreed on a stay against its own decision which affirmed the Kuala Lumpur High Court's ruling to declare the AGM invalid in the absence of a quorum.

Had the stay application been rejected, the current office bearers would be stripped of their power thus forcing them to hold another AGM within 30 days.

On May 27, High Court judge Raus Sharif declared that the 59th annual general meeting of the Malaysian Bar 'null and void' and that all decisions and orders made in the meeting were unlawful.

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 Legal Profession Act. The judge allowed stay of execution pending appeal to the Appeals Court.

Stay order abused

On July 8, the Bar failed in its bid to overturn Raus' decision when the Court of Appeal upheld his decision. The court also granted an interim stay pending today's hearing of the Bar's formal application for stay.

The Bar was represented by Sulaiman Abdullah while senior lawyer Zainur Zakaria acted for Van Burle.

In today's submission, Sulaiman had touched on Van Burle's ( pix ) complaint that the Council should not be granted a further stay as it had allegedly abused a stay order formerly granted by the High Court.

Van Burle had alleged that the council had abused the stay order on several occasions including when:

  • the Bar president Yeoh Yang Poh issued a press statement that despite the stay order, it would be 'business as usual' for the council
  • it conducted an opinion poll at the council's official website in which members were asked whether they had agreed to Raus' decision or not and when
  • it organised a forum on July 1 to discuss Raus' decision two days before the Court of Appeal hearing.

Stating that these allegations were unfounded, Sulaiman argued that there was nothing wrong in asking lawyers for their opinion on a decision that had affected them.

"Is it wrong for members of the Bar to discuss the ruling that had affected all 12,000 members. Similarly, the forum was conducted to explain the council's decision to appeal and to get feedback from the members on the matter," he said.

"If we had not held the forum, we would be accused of not listening to members. In the issue, the Bar would damned if it does and damned if it does not."

He also argued that there was nothing wrong with Yeoh's press statement as he was merely explaining the real situation. "Indeed the stay had allowed the council to resume its normal duties ... it is indeed business as usual for them," he added.

Compulsory AGM attendance

An interesting discussion cropped during today's proceeding when Justice Foong addressed the Bar's nagging problem of obtaining quorum for its AGM.

Expressing his regrets over the ' tidak apa ' (lackadaisical) attitude of lawyers, Foong suggested that lawyers who failed to attend a Bar AGM, not be issued their practising certificates.

He believed that lawyers would then make the effort to attend the AGM as it would affect their rice bowl if they didn't.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for the Bar to tell its members that if you don't come, there would not be a council to sign the certificates. I believe they would react accordingly if their rice bowl is affected," said the judge.

However, Sulaiman replied that the council could not impose such condition as the Legal Profession Act compels the council to issue a certificate to any candidate that satisfies the required conditions.

"We can only do that if the law is amended. If we don't issue the certificates, the council can be taken to court for ' mandamus ' and that has happened before in the past."