The Bar Council's extraordinary general meeting (EGM) tomorrow is mainly aimed at halting the overemphasis on the Key Performance Index (KPI) as well as the practise of hurried trials which may hamper justice.

Council chairperson Ragunath Kesavan when contacted today said it also wants to prevent the present scenario from getting any worse for its members.

He emphasised that the Bar Council welcomed Chief Justice Zaki Azmi's move to speed up cases as things have improved much now.

However, the council was concerned over possible pitfalls in the implementation of KPI.

bar council planning law forum 140607 ragunath kesavan "If you find an unreasonable judge not willing to grant postponements even for a valid reason, then we will have a problem," said Ragunath.

Though the council wants to see the present system to speed up cases further improved, he stressed that at the same time, the system must "ensure justice is done".

"At the end of the day, while cases are speedily disposed off, it must never compromise justice," he added.

Three motions will be tabled at the EGM.

Two resolutions have been drawn up, one by Ragunath and the other by senior lawyer Tommy Thomas.

Both will revolve around the premise that "justice must never give way to speed". The third is to address the other pressing problem of parking space for courts.

There are 12,500 lawyers in the country. The council needs to have a quorum of at least 500 for the motions to be heard. The EGM is scheduled to start at 10am at Wisma MCA.

Duration of cases

Ragunath noted that civil matters lasts between six to eight years, while criminal cases last five to six years.

"I think this is where the chief justice had tried to reduce the duration and backlog of cases and this is certainly lauded."

He said the EGM is for members to have a dialogue and discuss the issues at hand and he will bring the final resolutions to the chief justice for matters to be resolved.

Ragunath also noted there are about 300 to 400 full time criminal lawyers at present, and he agreed the limited number could have resulted in requests for postponements.

bar council conference On Sunday, its secretary George Varughese had said lawyers generally felt the introduction of KPI had limited the role of judges to exercise their powers to grant postponements for valid and strong reasons.

He said this was not fair to lawyers and their clients, adding that the problem was not limited to Kuala Lumpur and Selangor but is nationwide.

Varughese claimed that the council has received complaints that judges have allowed cases to go on even without lawyers present. This, as well as rushed trials, could lead to miscarriages of justice.

"This is what the Bar Council is worried about," Varughese said.