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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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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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!

When we were conducting our Legal Career Survey early this year, amongst others, we have also asked the legal industry in Malaysia as to which website they visited most.

Those websites that manage to get into the list were LexisNexis, CLJ, Malaysian Bar as well as Lexis. Which one do you think will rank at the top of the list out of the 602 responses? If you guessed LexisNexis, you got it right! 42% of the candidates have chosen LexisNexis as their favourite law website, and most of the people who agreed with it were the law students as well as the paralegals where 237 students and 9 paralegals were LexisNexis supporters! However, most of the lawyers picked CLJ and Malaysian Bar website as their favourite websites.

LexisNexis is one of the pioneers online portal providing essential law resources to the legal industry in Malaysia as well as the world. Apart from providing law resources, they also provide business information solution to corporation, government, tax and accounting industries.

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Following the hot issue of complaint by UUM law graduates recently, the result of Certificate in Legal Practice (CLP) exam this year is released yesterday.

The CLP exam’s director, K. Muniandy told the local newspaper, The Star that CLP exam candidates “are judged solely on their knowledge and merit and not on any quota system”, he further said that the “paper setters and markers did not know the candidates’ names as only their index numbers appeared on the answer scripts.”

He emphasised that there is no racial quota imposed on the exam system. Most students failed were because they did not answer the question in a practical manner, sometimes they just regurgitated the information that they memorised or were giving answer which were totally not related to the legal issues.

Muniandy also said that he has reduced the risk of leakage of exam questions by minimising the staffs involved in preparing the exam papers.

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Following Raja Petra and Abdul Rashid Abu Bakar, the famous blogger Syed Azidi Syed Aziz, the owner of a web blog- Kickdefalla is the 3rd Malaysian blogger being arrested under the Sedition Act 1984.

Syed is accused for inciting people to fly Malaysian national flag upside down as a protest against the government.

He was arrested by the police at his house on 17 September 2008 in Kota Baru.

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After posting the article entitled “UUM Law Students need to do CLP ?”, we received overwhelming feedback and comments from the law students and lawyers on this issue.

This morning, we have also received an anonymous open letter which we believe is from one of the law students from UUM to the relevant authorities. 

The letter read:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Dear Sir/Madam,

CONCERNING BACHELOR OF LAW DEGREE [LLB (HONS)] IN UUM

1. We would much appreciate if all Agencies, Ministries and Professional Bodies would pay fully attention to the pending recognition of Bachelor of Law Degree in UUM.

2. The facts are:

(a) The design and syllabus of law courses offered match other local universities;

(b) Adequate and international standard facilities provided, namely library, moot court, lecture room and so on;

(c) Two times internship training in Superior court and Subordinate court in each states, law firms or other Professional Bodies;

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This is another undesired scene that we do not want to see in the legal education system in Malaysia.

A parent of one of the law graduates of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) wrote to The Star complaining that his/her daughter are now left in a limbo as she cannot proceed with her chambering due to the fact that UUM law degree is not recognised by Bar Council for admission to Malaysian Bar.

On the next day the complain letter of the angry parent being published, the director of Legal Profession Qualifying Board, Muniandy Kannyappan, responded that UUM law degree is definitely recognised by the Qualifying Board, however, they are still decising if UUM law graduates are exampted from taking Certificate in Laegal Practice (CLP) exam, if the said graduates want to practise law in Malaysia. 

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The recent Political Tsunami in our country has yielded many changes for us, the Rakyat. We have seen the emergence of a dual-party system (well, almost), where a bigger and tougher opposition shares the limelight with the ruling party. We have seen giant-killers and the almighty falls of ministers. We have seen the weakening of racial politics and the strengthening of democracy.

For the legal community, the change came in the form of Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, the new de facto law minister. Hailed as “the most promising appointment” in the new cabinet by The Economist (Reference - “Shuffling deckchairs“, The Economist, 2008-03-19.), he has so far lived up to the name. From forcing the government to apologize for the 1988 judicial crisis (a huge leap, that one), the introduction of the Common Bar Examination, to his staunch support for establishment of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Video Clip –  Datuk Zaid is here to stay.

Thus, eLawyer, as your local legal community portal, would like to hear your views and concerns regarding some of the issues currently affecting the legal community and the country, as a whole.

We would like to invite all lawyers, law students and bloggers to participate in our blog writing competition, which features some ‘hot’ topics right now:

1) Towards an independent judiciary in Malaysia

2) Common Bar Exams: The creation of a new problem or a solution for an old one?

3) Welcome CheDet.com: the impact of Tun Mahathir’s blog

4) Anti-party Hopping Law- Agree or Disagree?

Choose EITHER ONE of the above topics, give your two-cents worth in not more than 1,000 words and you stand to win up to RM 500 cash! Successful entries will be featured in an exclusive section on our website.

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by Yong Ling Loong

Yet again, a substantive issue of law is being dismissed on technical grounds as the report shows. This is the chance for the Court of Appeal to settle the issue of whether a Muslim convert can renounce Islam and revert to her original religion. Yet, instead of coming up with a precedent, the court has dismissed the case in a 2-1 majority decision on technical grounds. The grounds being that that there are 2 names stated in the appeal - one a Chinese name and the other one, a Muslim name. Based on the report of The Malaysian Insider, it is quite clear that the 2 judges are harping on this most minor of issue - it’s become almost a travesty of justice. Laughable, in fact.

As counsel for the appellant said, what does it matter whether the names are different as “the Chinese name and Muslim name were the same person in the appeal.” Common sense should prevail here. Substantive issues should prevail over objections based only on form. Yes, Edmund Bon did not stick to just one name in the documents, as desired. This is something that is easily rectified and in the interest of justice, should have been allowed, so that the more substantive matter, the subject matter of the appeal can be fully argued and disposed off.

But instead, all resorting to flimsy excuses to deny this claim. We have Selangor legal advisor Datin Paduka Zauyah Be Loth Khan, representing the state, citing the same incompetency reason, to reject the appeal. So what if the appellant had used her Muslim name in her SD but signed it with her Chinese name?

If I had been using my Chinese name all my life to sign off all my documents and letters, am I going to change my signature just because I changed my religion? If I do that, won’t all all my documents be invalid because the signature is different. Is there a rule in Islam that makes it mandatory for all Muslim converts to change their signatures in all official documents? Is there a rule that I can’t be a Muslim and at the same time practise my Chinese culture like reading, writing and signing off documents in Chinese? If that is the case, then the Chinese Muslims in China are not quite the proper Muslims that they should be, going by the standards imposed here.

Say, my passport has my Chinese signature. When I convert to Islam, do I need to go to the Immigration Department to change my signature on my passport, or worse, be told to renew my passport based on my new name and new signature? In the process, I am charged another RM300 for the 32-page forced renewal. Will the Immigration Department pro-rate the amount or give me a rebate, if I still have another 4 years to go before its expiry? (more…)