The Malaysian Bar voted at their annual general meeting (AGM) today to continue serving alcohol at their functions.

The motion against serving alcohol at all Bar functions, proposed by lawyer Mohd Amir Sharil Bahari Md Noor, was overwhelmingly rejected, with 588 votes against, nine in favour and 16 abstaining from voting.

The proposed motion said that serving alcohol at a function would increase the budget of organising an event up to 40 percent unnecessarily.

It also said that the Bar is made up of members from diverse backgrounds who are multi-ethnic and multi-religious, and that most major religions prohibits the consumption of alcohol.

Meanwhile, the motion against newly-elected Bar Council member Siti Kasim, which was also proposed by Amir Bahari, was withdrawn during the AGM held at Renaissance Hotel in Kuala Lumpur today.

The motion against Siti Kasim was due to her uploading a video clip of a fellow lawyer giving a speech during closed-door proceedings in the Kuala Lumpur Bar committee AGM on her Facebook page.

The motion sought for the Bar to condemn her uploading of the video and for Bar Council members to lodge a complaint against her to the disciplinary board as well as to prevent Siti Kasim from "continuing to bring the legal profession into disrepute".

Newly-appointed Bar president George Varughese said the motion was withdrawn by Amir Bahari because it would have been merely academic.

"The member who was moving it decided to withdraw the motion.

"It's because there's already a pending complaint before the disciplinary board. Hence his motion would have been academic," Varughese said in a press conference held after the AGM today, which saw an attendance of 841 lawyers.

Apart from those two motions, four other motions were proposed at the AGM and all four motions were carried with an overwhelming majority, he said.

The other four motions were in relation to the Kelantan Orang Asli land and resources claim and indigenous peoples' rights, deaths in police custody and police brutality as well as the prosecution of police officers involved in custodial deaths and the repeal of Prevention of Crime Act (Poca) and all other detention without trial laws.

The Bar Council will now send these resolutions to the respective bodies and will take the next necessary steps, Varughese said.

The other newly-appointed Bar office bearers are its vice-president Abdul Fareed Abdul Gafoor, its secretary Roger Chan and its treasurer Ravi Nekoo.