I refer to the Malaysiakini report Protesters stop Bar's 'conversion' forum.

There seems to be something very wrong with the Bar Council - very, very wrong. The few issues that they have tried to discuss in open forums in their premises makes one to wonder if the Bar Council is a dictatorship.

Did they seek the views of their members before they held these forums or are did they just seek the views of a few, comprising mostly senior officers of the council?

I wonder what sort of argument will the other members of the Bar Council have on these same issues which a few of them have tried to bring out into the open to discuss and debate.

It can cause a 'loss of face' for the Bar Council and lose whatever standing that it thinks it still has in society if they cannot agree to make a collective decision on such matters before they take them out to the streets.

This can be seen in the recent incident were groups of people saw the organising of the forum on religious conversion by the Bar Council as an obvious threat to their religions and religious values.

For issues that they considered to be pressing and needed to be discussed openly, surely the decision must have had the full support of the majority of the Bar Council members,otherwise, the general public will think that there just a few of them who are using their executive posts to do the bidding of others.

Some of these issues discussed by the Bar Council, are, I am afraid, matters that only the courts can decide. They definitely cannot be decided in any open forum, let alone by members of the council and some members of the public.

What the Bar Council should have done is to first have an in-house discussions on the matter amongst their members and see if they agree to discuss the matter in public.

Whatever it is, I hope that the Bar Council will not lose sight of what their sacred duties are to the public and if they have any bone of contention to take up, they do so by using the proper channels.

By all means conduct a serious and comprehensive study on the matters and present them in the most intelligent manner.

Inviting individuals who can only give their own views casually without the backing of facts and figures surely cannot be encouraged.

The issues that the Bar Council wants to debate are definitely not within the scope of the layman who can and has been known to trivialise many an issue.