Is the Bar Council's campaign for an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) to arrest the continuous deaths in custody "politically fashionable"?

 

Or is campaigning against the draconian Sedition Act also politically fashionable?

These are among the questions posed by Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran after Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail ( right ) criticised the Bar Council for supposedly taking up "politically fashionable" issues.

Kulasegaran said the Bar Council has taken up many issues which are of public interest and he too, as a lawyer, had championed such matters.

 

"The attorney-general should read the Legal Profession Act which specifically demands the Bar Council under Section 42 to act without fear and favour.

 

"The Bar is in the correct direction as it is articulating for the betterment of the Bar and its members. 

 

"In fact, a far sighted attorney-general would complement the progressive activities of the Bar," said Kulasegaran in a statement today.

 

Last Saturday, Gani criticised the Bar Council in the presence of its president Christopher Leong.

 

"It would be even less appropriate for a nation's legal professional body, which is statutorily established to regulate the legal profession, to be focused on politically fashionable issues of the day, while the profession itself runs asunder," Gani had said.

 

Leong ( left ) had rebutted that the Bar Council was merely raising issues of public interest and has no interest in fashion or political party matters.

 

The Bar Council has earned the ire of the government for its criticism against deaths in custody and the Sedition Act.

 

October last year, the Bar Council gathered some 2,000 lawyers in a march to Parliament, demanding an end to the Sedition Act.

 

The government, despite initially pledging to do away with the draconian law, has backtracked after pressure from right wing groups to retain the law.