KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — “I’ve been successful in keeping my sanity,” Christopher Leong says, clearly relieved that his maximum two-year term as Malaysian Bar president will end next Saturday.

Throughout his tenure, Leong has spoken up on various issues like the controversial Sedition Act 1948, the sodomy prosecution of Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and the Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the government ban against Catholic paper The Herald from referring to God as “Allah”, a high-profile case in which the Federal Court later dismissed the Catholic Church’s application for leave to appeal.

Leong led some 1,000 lawyers in a historic march last October to call for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to fulfill his promise to repeal the Sedition Act, amid a slew of investigations and prosecutions under the colonial-era law.

The pace of his work over the past two years was “very punishing”, he says, pointing to multiple meetings, tasks and speaking engagements, as well as the three to eight press enquiries he gets on average almost every day, including weekends.

Even our interview is interrupted with several phone calls that he does not answer. “See, the media again,” he says.

Despite his busy schedule as Malaysian Bar president — a full-time job that prevents him from spending much time with his only daughter, aged 10, or taking on cases at his law firm — Leong feels honoured to have served a 68-year-old institution that is older than Malaysia itself.

He has also done work with the government on law reform, such as on domestic violence and advocacy for vulnerable crime victims like children, rape victims or foreign workers, as well as on reforms of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

Here, Leong talks about what it was like leading the professional legal body of some 16,000 members in peninsular Malaysia.

In his own words: