I refer to your recent articles, 'Bar Council calls for EGM on judges promotion' and 'Judges promotion draws fire from lawyers'.

I am very troubled by the Bar Council's move to call for an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) this October to discuss the appointment and promotion of judges.

Also equally disturbing are the statements appearing in the article on July 24 where the council had stated that there is no "credible explanation" for several judges to "leapfrog" over their more senior colleagues for promotions to the Court of Appeal and Federal Court, and that the entire process suggested a "lack of propriety."

These unsubstantiated statements are patently a contempt of the highest degree and a pernicious and vicious attack on the judiciary and must be dealt with appropriately.

I am puzzled that a body like the Bar Council constituted by members who are supposedly learned in the law can make such irresponsible, unsubstantiated and highly contemptuous statements. It is imperative for the Bar to put its house in order before it embarks on a mission to correct others.

I am absolutely sure that the Bar does not have the power to make these sort of statements concerning the judiciary and is clearly acting ultra vires the Legal Profession Act.

These sort of attacks guised in the form of the statements made destroy the confidence of people in the courts, seriously impairs judicial administration, and brings the administration of justice itself into disrepute.

The appointments, I believe, were made in accordance with the provisions of the constitution. Does not the Bar Council respect the constitution?

Further, the call for the EGM to discuss the issue of recent promotion of judges is tantamount to not only an attack upon the judiciary but clearly an aspersion and insult to the appointing authority, namely, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Borrie and Lowe on the Law of Contempt (third edition) cites a passage from the judgment of Wilmot J in R v Almon [1765] Wilm 243, which on page 255 reads as follows:

• The arraignment of the justice of the judges, is arraigning the King's justice; it is an impeachment of his wisdom and goodness in his choice of his judges and, excites in the minds of his people a general dissatisfaction with all judicial determinations, and indisposes their minds to obey them; and whenever men's allegiance to the law is so fundamentally shaken, it is the most fatal and most dangerous obstruction of justice, and, in my opinion, calls out for a more rapid and immediate redress than any other obstruction whatsoever...To be impartial and to be universally thought so are both absolutely necessary for ... justice ... .

Under the circumstances, the proposal of the Bar to call for an EGM to discuss the recent promotion of judges constitutes an offence under section 4(1)(a) read together with section 3(1)(c) of the Sedition Act 1948.

I also find it strange that one of the objects of the Bar Council in calling for the EGM is to discuss the recent promotions as it affects the legal profession. I do not understand this. Does the Bar Council want to have a say in the promotion of the very judges before whom they appear? Would that not result in the Bar Council supporting judges who would favour them?

Such a proposal is against all known norms of justice and fairplay. It is like a team in a football match wanting to appoint its own referee. In that event, justice will not be seen to be done even if the referee is fair. I would have expected the Bar Council to know better.

I call upon the authorities concerned to investigate and take appropriate action against the persons responsible in the Bar Council for initiating the move to call for an EGM and also for issuing the unsubstantiated statements which has the effect of destroying public confidence in the judiciary.