A vote of no-confidence might be initiated against members of the Bar Council during the Malaysian Bar annual general meeting next March, for their 'contradictory' stand regarding a provision in the Legal Profession Act that prohibits council members from holding political posts.

The council is alleged to have contradicted a Malaysian Bar resolution passed in 1978 which criticised the provision of the Legal Professions Act which provides the prohibition.

"It may be possible that we would be calling for a vote of no-confidence against the Bar Council,"said N Surendran, a lawyer and a member of the 10,106-strong Malaysian Bar today.

Surendran said the issue of Section 46(A) in the Legal Profession Act 1976 (LPA) would be brought up again at the AGM.

"We are considering our options which might also include a move to censure the Bar Council," Surendran told malaysiakini .

The 36-member Bar Council, elected annually by the Malaysian Bar, is currently chaired by Mah Weng Kwai who took over from Sulaiman Abdullah last year.

A group of lawyers had earlier called for an extraordinary meeting last Friday to censure the Bar Council for "condoning the 'muzzle' and constraints introduced by Section 46A of the Legal Profession Act 1976".

However the meeting failed to materialise due to a lack of quorum as only 841 members of the required 1,182 showed up.

Surendran, together with 74 other lawyers had "demanded that the Bar Council at all times act in accordance with the stand taken by the Malaysian Bar in 1978 opposing the amendments introduced to the LPA in 1977".

The move was prompted by the Bar Council's opposition to a High Court declaration sought by a council member R Sivarasa that section 46A of the LPA was invalid because it violates the freedom of association provision in Article 10 of the Federal Constitution.

Mah was reported to have said that "the council objected to his application because it felt its independence must always be evident to the public".

Sivarasa was disqualified as a Bar Council member after he was appointed a vice-president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia.

'Wrong and illogical'

Surendran argued that the present Bar leadership's stand on the issue contravened good logic and common sense.

"His (Mah's) position is completely wrong and illogical. The resolution passed by the Bar in 1978 severely disapproves of the amendments as it was done with the 'intention of muzzling the Bar," Surendran said.

Asked if fulfilling the one-fifth quorum requirement would forestall the AGM as it did the EGM, Surendran said that it would not pose a problem.

"The notices of the AGM would be passed around to lawyers two months before the event. It would be unlike the problem we had with the EGM which was on Sept 28 but members were only notified four days before," Surendran said.

For an EGM or AGM to convene, one-fifth of the Bar must be present and of those present, a two-third majority is needed in order for a resolution to be passed.

The quorum requirement, which is high by ordinary standards, was also one of the amendments made to the LPA in 1977, which the same group of lawyers oppose as well.

Alex De Silva, another lawyer who proposed the move to censure the Bar Council, said that it was necessary to rectify the Bar's position on the amendments to the LPA.

"There are people watching the Bar Council, so they must be careful in what they do," de Silva said.