KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 25 — Lawyer Rosli Dahlan, known for his fiery arguments in court, was unusually subdued in court last Friday. But he was far from unhappy.

Months after appearing before Justice Datuk Zaleha Yusof who ruled in favour of his client in a law suit — Borders vs the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department (JAWI) — Rosli witnessed his own daughter being called to the Bar before the very same judge.

Rosli’s daughter Nury Amirah was among 10 pupils who officially became lawyers before Zaleha in the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

“This is a rare but happy occasion,” Rosli told The Malay Mail Online, when commenting on the milestone in his daughter’s life.

“While normally Judge Zaleha hears difficult arguments between government and private lawyers, Friday morning everything was amicable,” Rosli said.

Rosli also moved his pupil, Muhammad Hafizuddin Zakariah, whom he described as a Terengganu-born “kampung boy”, to be a lawyer that same morning. Hafizuddin, who holds a First Class law degree, was visibly emotional when Rosli robed him.

But that was not all. Rosli had also moved the call for Siti Ramizah Abdul Rais, the child of a lawyer who sits on the opposite side of the bench.

Siti Ramizah is the daughter of Siti Salwa Musa, a senior federal counsel (SFC) under the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), and the National Heart Institute’s consultant Dr Abdul Rais Sanusi.

In his speech to move Ramizah, Rosli said that he had known Siti Salwa when he was only a young lawyer, saying it was an honour for him to move her daughter’s call despite not meeting her for over 15 years.

“This demonstrates the respect and camaraderie shared by the Bar and government lawyers, and we must continue with this healthy tradition,” he said.

Rosli summarised the morning perfectly by saying “the best traditions of the Bar and Bench were on display.”

In March, Judge Zaleha had boldly ruled that the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department (JAWI) had acted illegally in seizing Canadian author Irshad Manji’s books at a Borders’ bookstore before it was banned and prosecuting Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, a manager of a Borders bookstore.

Five months after pronouncing JAWI, the home minister and the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Islamic affairs guilty of abusing their powers to illegally prosecute the bookstore’s Muslim manager, Zaleha last week released her strongly-worded grounds of judgement.