The 69th Bar Council annual general assembly opened with much excitement this morning as lawyers turned out in force to vote on a number of opposing motions.

 

But the anticipation quickly fizzled out after the first vote was overwhelmingly defeated and by the time motions on the Sedition Act came up hours later, there were only a handful of lawyers around to vote.

 

Several lawyers had remarked on Twitter how the AGM this time was different, with the turnout at the start being more than in previous years.

 

"If you see lawyers parking outside hotel, it means the numbers have turned up. And the right numbers," said Edmund Bon.

 

There was drama even before the AGM kicked off at the Renaissance Hotel in Kuala Lumpur as veteran lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah ( left ) went to court yesterday to obtain an injunction .

 

His injunction forced the AGM to drop one of the 12 motions to be debated, which was on Shafee's conduct with regard to Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's case.

 

It was a small victory for the Bar Council's anti-establishment group - dubbed G100 - ahead of the AGM, and the battle lines were drawn when their motion came up for voting first.

 

The motion called for the censure of outgoing Bar Council president Christopher Leong for calling Anwar's conviction a "persecution".

 

When the results were announced, it was clear that the G100's high-profile manoeuvres could not translate into numbers as their motion was overwhelmingly defeated, 1,194 votes to 161 votes.

 

Motions painstakingly debated

 

The long list of motions was painstakingly debated, dragging the AGM into late afternoon.

 

The overwhelming results, coupled with the long session, appeared to have led to the lawyers losing interest as their numbers gradually dwindled.

 

When another G100 motion calling on the Bar Council to withdraw its opposition to the Sedition Act finally came up, only a handful - 18 to be exact - voted in favour.

 

Those against it were no better as they could summon only 282 votes.

 

Not surprisingly, the opposing motion calling for the Bar Council to take the government to task for its continued use of the Sedition Act was easily passed.

 

Some 277 lawyers voted in favour to put an end to the Sedition Act while only 12 opposed.

 

The numbers of votes for both motions were dwarfed by the votes at the beginning of the AGM this morning.

Aside from the hot-button issues, the AGM also passed house-keeping motions for the Malaysian Bar, including increasing its building fee from RM100 to RM250 a year.

The AGM today saw a strong initial turnout of 1,906 members.

In contrast, the AGM over the past two years had seen attendance of between 1,200 and 1,300 lawyers.

Bid to censure Bar chief overwhelmingly defeated