KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 — With the Malaysian Bar celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, its president Anand Raj said the professional body for lawyers in Peninsular Malaysia will continue its main role of upholding justice without fear or favour.

“We will commemorate in an appropriate way, but we are not going to go overboard with balloons and confetti,” he told Malay Mail, saying that the Malaysian Bar exists to serve instead of having “big parties”.

As Malaysian Bar president, he said he will also prioritise championing the causes of stateless persons and persons with disabilities during his one-year term.

‘They look like us, talk like us, but have no IC’ 

Anand highlighted that stateless persons born in Malaysia should actually be Malaysians, but are denied citizenship and identity cards (ICs) until they go to court.

Noting that there have been cases where the Malaysian government agreed to recognise these stateless persons as Malaysians mid-way after court proceedings, Anand said: “There should be a better process for us to eliminate statelessness.”

“This institutional inertia against giving people who were born in Malaysia, who have never been outside the country and speak Bahasa — they live here, they look like us, talk like us in every way, but they don’t have IC — we must eliminate that,” he said.

“And the terrible shame about that, about people who are in that situation is, when they are denied the IC, they can’t open a bank account; you can’t open a bank account, you can’t get a job, so they are trapped with no options and very few choices.

“So that is one area that Malaysia has failed terribly and we as a country need to do better,” he said.

Improving access for persons with disabilities 

While Malaysia did introduce the Persons with Disabilities Act in 2008, Anand said not enough has been done in this country for this community.

The Persons with Disabilities Act lists this community’s right to access things such as public buildings, public transport facilities, education, equal employment opportunities, cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport.

Anand said many private and public buildings in Malaysia are not easily accessible for people with disabilities “who may need something as basic as a ramp or a lift”, and there is still much room for improvement.

With the Malaysian Bar having held discussions with the judiciary on improving physical access, Anand said: “I’m glad the judiciary is willing to work with us. For example, some of the older court buildings may not be so friendly for access to disabled people, and we need to find a way, we need to work together to find a way, and I’m confident that we will overcome that.”

Apart from reminding the public that the conversation must include this community, Anand said the Malaysian Bar is also prepared to support any test cases that may be brought to court on substantive issues such as discrimination against persons with disabilities.

Coming from a law firm with three past Bar presidents 

Anand, who will be 54 this year and has been a lawyer for 30 years, said he was overwhelmed by the number of messages he received when he was elected as Malaysian Bar president in March.

Noting that the messages conveyed the “high expectation” placed on the Malaysian Bar, Anand said, “I would certainly do my best but I’m still a human being.”

Still, Anand said he was also fortunate to have joined a law firm with a long tradition of serving the Malaysian Bar, and without any restrictions on volunteering to serve the Bar.

“The three presidents who came before me from my firm were Datuk Ronald Khoo, Chan Hua Eng and E D Shearn, so I’ve always had a very good support system from my partners and colleagues, and that is necessary to do this job, because it’s an unpaid job and you definitely need the support of the firm, otherwise it will be impossible to discharge the responsibilities,” he said.

Beyond helping to shoulder some of his cases, he said his current firm enables him to speak freely on behalf of the Malaysian Bar: “No, not only that, they are with me in the positions that we take, that the Bar takes. It would not be possible for me to do this if I was in a firm where they said ‘don’t say so much, don’t be so naughty, don’t draw attention to yourself, be low profile’.”

Malaysian Bar’s role in the country’s law reforms

Anand said the Bar Council currently has 48 committees that look at specific areas of law, and that it can tap into their views on proposals for law reforms.

He said the Malaysian Bar has had an influence on law reforms, such as the 2007 “Walk for Justice” leading to the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) Act.

But he explained that reform is a journey and not a destination, and the Malaysian Bar is still working towards pushing for improvements to laws such as the JAC Act, and the Peaceful Assembly Act.

“We will always voice our views on proposed legislation, we will voice our views on reforms that are required to existing legislation, we will voice our views on new laws that are required, which the government may not be thinking about.

“Sometimes the government will adopt what we say, there are times when they will completely disregard what we say — we have seen both, but we will not stop. 

“And experience has shown that if we keep at it, eventually we will get to a point where something we say will be picked up and will be worked upon. It might not come out right the first time, but we will continue to advocate until we improve that,” he said.

Why PM’s tenure limit should be two terms, not 10 years 

Anand said the Malaysian Bar had in 2018 submitted a detailed proposal of proposed reforms to the government’s Institutional Reforms Committee, including a limit to the prime minister’s tenure to two terms.

The Malaysian government previously tried to introduce a law to limit the PM’s tenure to 10 years but in March narrowly missed getting the required parliamentary support by just two votes.

But Anand clarified that a 10-year limit is different from a two-term limit: “But it really should be two terms, not 10 years, because 10 years can work out to be three or four terms.”

Explaining how it could in theory end up becoming four terms, Anand said a 10-year limit could enable prime ministers to call for snap elections in the middle of their five-year term, and then introduce unpopular or controversial new laws after winning the elections, and then repeat the snap election process again.

“But making it clear with two terms would reduce the uncertainty, and effectively restrict the prime minister’s ability to call an election before introducing unpopular legislation,” he said.

He said having a 10-year limit also risks voters getting a prime minister whom they did not vote for, if a prime minister runs out of time when they hit the 10-year mark.

“So the problem is, you may have prime ministers winning an election towards the end of the 10 years and not being able to see that term through, because they’ve hit tenure. Then they’ve got to hand off to somebody else who wasn’t the prime minister candidate when they went to the electorate,” he said.