Bar council president Mah Weng Kwai wants the public to respect the decision of the Kuala Lumpur Federal Court to dismiss former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim's appeal against conviction and a six-year sentence for corruption.

He believes that the Federal Court would have set aside Anwar Ibrahim's conviction if it had found any improprieties in the proceedings of the lower courts.

In his comments

to malaysiakini , he adds that he believes that the Anwar trial had gone through the process of law and those who do not agree with the decision can use the ballot box to show their discontent.

DAP chief Lim Kit Siang points out to Mah that he is "completely misguided" in his comments, and has the doctrine of separation of powers upside down 

  • "the unusual manner in which the trial itself was conducted" (ample and clear examples were given);

  • "the use of intemperate language by the judge in the course of the trial"; and

  • the Bar Council being "deprived of holding a watching brief during the trial and in the subsequent applications and was therefore unable to perform and fulfill its statutory duties in the interest of justice under the Legal Profession Act, 1976".

    • The statement concluded: "Several questions including that of substantive law, practice and procedure, and the administration of justice have been brought to the fore which need to be addressed in the context of fundamental rights and liberties guaranteed in the Constitution."

    By saying that the Federal Court decision should be respected, Mah is asking the public to accept and condone what was an unfair trial — which, very ironically, the Bar Council had sought and fought so strenuously to highlight for the past few years.

    Surely Mah would remember the press statement of the Bar Council on Aug 9, 2000 — on how it had viewed with "great dismay" — "the irregularities that occurred at the trial and the evidence that was adduced at the trial as reported".

    The Bar Council (of which Mah was then the secretary) declared so wisely and uncompromisingly then: "The trial has been closely followed, locally and internationally, and the decision, although delivered only yesterday, has already been adversely commented upon by a number of groups concerned with the question of judicial independence.

    "Looked at objectively, the criticisms levelled against the way the trial was conducted and the decision itself merit consideration. They cannot, as is our habit, be dismissed off-hand as having been made by foreigners or persons having ulterior motives. If we are to ever begin to put things right again, we must either answer these accusations rationally or take necessary remedial steps."

    The Bar Council has through the past four years maintained its conviction and consistency in its stand on the highly irregular Anwar Ibrahim trial. Now its president comes along with his "Mah-gic" wand and tries to make a grave miscarriage of justice look like a fair process of law.

    Suffice to say there are very few brave people in the judiciary and fewer still perhaps in the Bar Council.

    So disturbing is the silence that emanates from this supposedly respected body of men and women of the law, whose head chooses to play mickey at the judicial circus.