‘Do action speaks louder than words’??? However, the Bar Council Human Rights Committee proved vice versa. They decided to talk rather than walk in conjunction with the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDNR) 1948 as well as the Human Rights Day on the 10th of December 2008.

Hence, The Bar Council Human Rights Committee will be organizing the Bar Council Human Rights Debate 2008 to make known towards the public about our rights as homosapiens. In addition, this debate will cultivate moral values and narrow the gap regardless culture, ethnic and language because all rights allied issue will be debated. The debate ought to be the right place to express your opinion on international and national policies. The theme for the debate is “UDHR @ 60 and still not all is right”. The event will take place on the 9th-12th of December, 2008 at KDU college (PJ Campus).
If you are interested to know more about the Articles in UDNR, you can click the link ,http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Each team consist of two person. The debate will be held in the British Parliamentary style. Thus, there will be opening and closing arguments for both the government and the opposition. Each person will be given 7 minutes to present his/her argument. Audi Alteram Partem is exercised in the debate.The debate do not requires you to only speak, but hearing the other party is essential too! Watching debates has never been mundane to me, most of the speakers were very eloquent people. If you think you are one of them, quickly register for this debate. Attractive prizes are awaiting the winner. If debate is not your cup of tea, perhaps you can opt to participate as an adjudicator or in the Public Speaking competition.

However, if you wish to assist or donate a token of appreciation for this event. Please do not hesitate to do so because it is never easy to organize and make it successful event without support from everyone. Let’s participate and celebrate this event to show that WE CARE and we are concern about our rights. If we do not even care about our rights, who will?
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The applicable fees in respect of the Debate Tournament and Public Speaking Competition are as follows:

I. Debate Tournament

For participants

RM250 per person (for debater)
RM250 per person (for adjudicator)
RM250 per person (for officer/ observer)
(Fee includes food and hotel accommodation)
Every team must have 2 debaters and 1 adjudicator. (For participating institutions, the maximum number of teams permitted is 5 per institution)

For ‘Stay At Home’ participants

RM180 per person (for debater)
RM180 per person (for adjudicator)
RM180 per person (for officer/observer)
(Fee includes food)
Every team must have 2 debaters and 1 adjudicator. (For participating institutions, the maximum number of teams permitted is 5 per institution)

II. Public Speaking Competition

RM50 per person (Fee includes food)

Registration Process:

Kindly send to us via wire transfer the requisite fee(s) by 30 October 2008, details of which are as follows:

Bar Council
HSBC, No 2, Leboh Ampang, 50050 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Account No: 301-022166-001
SWIFT Code No: HBMBMYKL
(Please pay all bank charges so that the Bar Council receives the full amount of the fees.)

Alternatively, send your cheque(s) made in favor of the ‘Bar Council’ to them.

After transferring or sending your fee, e-mail them at hrdebate08@malaysianbar.org.my, and tell them your name, institution, and the amount of money you transferred/sent.

Attach a copy of the transfer slip/cheque and the registration form to the e-mail you sent. They will not cover transaction costs.

Please visit http://hrdebate08.wordpress.com/ for more information.

P/S: eLawyer.com.my is proud to be one of the sponsors of the above event.

By Khairul Anuar bin Shaharudin (Advocate & Solicitor)

There are a lot of politicians from the legal background either as a graduate of law school but never practice law or famous law practitioners who are fodder for their soundbites in or out of Parliament. They are well-known to be hardliners and don’t care what people say about them. Either to their face or behind them. Some of the best politicians, which are subjective (I mean, what is a good politician? A good bullshitter?) are lawyers. Either in the opposition side or the current government side. Either in the Parliament of Malaysia or as a state assemblyman. All are known for being very good in talking the talk. But do they walk the walk?

Currently, there is a kind of a upheavel among lawyers on the lack of lawyers willing to take the mantel of a presidency of the Bar Council or being on the council itself. There are a few articles in newspaper like in the Star newspaper on 21.11.08 by the Putik Lada columnist or a campaign by http://www.elawyers.com/ aboth the lack of voting papers being returned to the Bar Council secretariat. We vote by post you see.

If any one of the candidate want to rig the voting, I think its plausible as it is just a piece of paper with the name of the candidate and a column for you to tick your choice. This year, there are 23 candidates for 12 post. Everyody remember the fiasco of last year’s Bar Council election? I think, but am not sure, the case on that election is still on appeal. That what’s I love about the Bar Council, half of our yearly fees go to defending the Bar from litigations due to some members not being satisfied with the Council’s decision.

Choose me as the next Bar Council President and I will act cute to get what I want

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By Fahri Azzat

I was reading the decision of GS Gill Sdn Bhd v Descente, Ltd and another appeal [2008] 6 MLJ 181 recently where the Court of Appeal had yet another instance to reaffirm the principle (which really needs no further affirmation or re-affirmation, but perhaps things are the way they are because some judges still need regular reminders every now and again; so I’m also not quite sure why this case even merits a report since it just rehashes principles long stated) that an appellate court would not interfere with an actual finding of fact by a trial court. What they would interfere with is only the inference of fact drawn from a finding of fact. Gopal Sri Ram JCA wrote the lead judgment and referred to the decision of Clarke v Edinburgh Tramways [1919] SC 35 and the dicta of Lord Shaw of Dunfermline which bears reproduction so that the thoughts it provoked from me can be better appreciated:

When a judge hears and sees witnesses and makes a conclusion or inference with regard to what on balance is the weight of their evidence, that judgment is entitled to great respect, and that quite irrespective of whether the judge makes any observations with regard to credibility or not. I can of course quite understand a Court of Appeal that says that it will not interfere in a case in which the judge has announced as part of his judgment that he believes one set of witnesses, having seen them and heard them, and does not believe another. But that is not the ordinary case of a cause in a court of justice. In courts of justice in the ordinary case things are much more evenly divided; witnesses without any conscious bias towards a conclusion may have in their demeanour, in their manner, in their hesitation, in the nuance of their expressions, in even the turns of the eyelid, left an impression upon the man who saw and heard them which can never be reproduced in the printed page. What in such circumstances, thus psychologically put, is the duty of an appellate court? In my opinion, the duty of an appellate court in those circumstances is for each judge of it to put to himself, as I now do in this case, the question, Am I — who sit here without those advantages, sometimes broad and sometimes subtle, which are the privileges of the judge who heard and tried the case — in a position, not having those privileges, to come to a clear conclusion that the judge who had them was plainly wrong? If I cannot be satisfied in my own mind that the judge with those privileges was plainly wrong, then it appears to me to be my duty to defer to his judgment.

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Bar Council is holding their council members election during the month of November 2008. As mentioned in our previous post, the voting rate was always unsatisfactory.

eLawyer, as an online law portal wishes to contribute our small bit by providing a space at our law blog to allow the candidates who are running for the council members’ election to introduce themselve and shout out their manifesto so that the voters will get to know them better.

In addition to creating awaraness amongst the existing members of Malaysian Bar, we also hope such awareness can be created amongst the future members of the Bar i.e. law students.

We are glad to receive the first election statement from one of the running candidate Mr Colin Pereira.

I am offering myself as a candidate for election to the Bar Council, having served the Bar in the following capacities:

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Hi, my name is Sasha Lyna Abdul Latif. I’m a member of the Malaysian Bar.

I’m truly sorry that I have to clog your email inbox but I would like to raise this important issue for your consideration.

As most of you are aware, November is when members of the Bar are given an opportunity to elect 12 members onto the Bar Council. Any time soon you will receive a ballot paper where you can vote for the 12 persons that you feel most qualified to lead the Malaysian Bar.

Every year, the Bar Council secretariat will issue more than 12,000 ballot papers but it is disappointing to note that only about 3,000 or so ballots are filled and sent back to the Secretariat.

Are we part of the 9,000 or so members who don’t bother to vote?  Are we the ones responsible for the trees that have to be cut down just so that these ballot papers end up in the waste bin?

I urge ALL of you, fellow members of the Bar not to put the ballot papers to waste! I urge you, to cast your vote; I urge you to tick those who you believe can get the job done; I urge you to urge others to vote!!
Send your ballot paper back to the Bar Council Secretariat by 30 November!

Get others to VOTE too!! Please end this email to all lawyers that you know!

The list of attendance of Council Members at Meetings from 15 March 2008 to 11 October 2008 is as follows:

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By Loke Yuen Hong

Imagine while you were leisurely enjoying your tea, reading newspaper. Life is blissful as it is serene. Suddenly, in the front page of Business section, you found out that XYZ Corporation is embarking on a billion dollar project on land plot ABC. You had a funny feeling, not because of the intensity of the project at this time of global economic meltdown, but rather, plot ABC is yours and you definitely had nothing to do with XYZ Corp nor its project.

You went to Land Office, and lo! the records showed that you sold your land to XYZ Corp two weeks ago. Whats more, the Document of Title that was used in the transaction is a duplicate one as you had “lost” the original ones some three weeks ago, though now you had it in your hand.

Had you had some amnesia? A quick check showed that “you” had done the transaction, though XYZ Corp. officers had seen you not.

Obviously, someone sold your land to XYZ Corp using your name. What can you do?

Nothing.

Yupe, you read it right.

Kiss your land goodbye and keep the document of title as a memory of a long gone land.

Because that was what happened in Adorna Properties Sdn. Bhd. v Boonsom Bonyanit. It all begins when a rogue pretending to be Boonsom managed to convinced the Land Office that she was Boonsom and that the original document of title went missing. When she got the duplicate, she sold the land to Adorna. By the time the real Boonsom knew of it, the title had already been registered in Adorna’s name.

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by Khairul Anuar bin Shaharudin (Advocate & Solicitor)

As a member of some sub-committee in Bar Council and Selangor Bar Committee, I was invited for the officiation of Lawasia just now, 29.10.08, at KL Convention Centre.

Lawasia is like a coalition of Bar Associations around Asia-Pacific region up until Brazil. Its current outgoing President is the former Malaysian Bar Council President, Mr. Mah Weng Kwai. It seems that Malaysia had hosted Lawasia Conference twice before in 1968 and 1998. Our turn seems to come every 20 years.
There were 4 speeches after a percussion group (I think they were the HAND, quite good!) hammered the eardrums of the newly installed Chief Justice, Tan Sri Zaki and the new President Court of Appeal. Their investiture was today in front of DYMM Agung and how much you shouted or blogged about them being UMNO cronies or how much lawyers hated them, it wouldn’t matter. They are in…

Anyway, the highlights of the speeches were when Dato’ Ambiga let rips about ISA in front of the international delegates and press. She was even praised by the MC, who herself is a lawyer, on “telling it as it is”. How apt…

Then Pak Lah, our beloved PM, had to do something about the parting shot by Ambiga. He suddenly said in his speech that the Bar Council is taking the initiative to amend the Legal Profession Act 1974, to let foreign lawyers to practice in Malaysia.
Yeah, right!

I am one of the sub-committee on this matter which is still under negotiation with various government agencies and under a gag order and now he says that its already agreed upon and told the whole world about it. Ambiga was exchanging glances with Christopher Leong, who was also in the thick of things on the foreign lawyers matter, when this was announced.
So, there you have it. Politics at the highest level. Oh, you want to know what Pak Lah has to say about ISA? Using some holy scripture quotes from Quran in which he has a duty to the people to ensure justice is for all.
Go figure!

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