The Bar Council should not judge the judiciary's independence based on just a few cases, Appellate Court president Mohd Raus Syarif said today.

He said the court judgments do not just favour the government and have been in favour of opposition leaders too.

"You must go through all the cases that we decided [...] cases where it was not in favour of the government.

"Cases of politicians like PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, PKR's Tian Chua and DAP's Tony Pua [...] all won against the government but they never mentioned that," Mohd Raus told reporters on the sidelines of the 50th annual judges conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

He was responding to Malaysian Bar president Steven Thiru's remarks critical of the judiciary earlier today.

In his speech at the launch of Legal Year 2016, Thiru said certain judgments in constitutional cases suggested that government interests outweighed the rights of Malaysians.

"The apparent reluctance of the court to invalidate legislation or state enactments on constitutional grounds is worrying and has given rise to the public perception that the interest of the state prevails over the constitutional rights of citizens.

“The willingness on the part of the courts to cede their jurisdiction has been decried as an abdication of responsibility,” Thiru said.

The Bar president cited judgments in cases such as Azmi Sharom’s constitutional challenge against the Sedition Act; the transgenders’ challenge against a Negri Sembilan Islamic law prohibiting Muslims’ cross-dressing and M Indira Gandhi’s challenge of the validity of her children’s unilateral conversion to Islam

Mohd Raus said in cases such as those, the courts must make a decision even if it is an unpopular one.

"We decide according to the law as we understand it. Of course, they may not be happy but somebody has to decide," he said.