PETALING JAYA, Feb 18 — The Bar Council has become a “political animal” for the opposition to attack the government and “drastic action” must be taken to neutralise it, lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah said last night.

Shafee’s assertion was in response to Bar Council president Christopher Leong’s highlighting of “glaring anomalies” that included the decision to prosecute Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy but not his accuser, former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

“Christopher Leong doesn’t understand the case and he made such criticism despite not being down in the arena himself... and when he said the verdict was persecution and not prosecution, he was implicating the Federal Court itself,” Shafee told an Umno Youth-organised forum here last night.

“The Bar Council has become a political animal... they are in fact a political party belonging to the opposition,” he added later on.

Shafee claimed that Leong was in contempt for his remarks because they suggested the Federal Court judges were incapable of impartial conduct, adding that the latter should be cited for contempt of court.

But the lawyer said that he cannot be the person to initiate the move as it would create the impression of bias.

“So, somebody has to initiate the move”.

The Umno-linked lawyer then claimed that if no action was taken against the Bar Council in its current state, the body could cause problems to the legal fraternity.

He noted that Singapore faced a similar issue under then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who later clamped down on the country’s Bar after it was deemed to pro-opposition.

“I am not suggesting that we do the same... but drastic action must be taken,” he said.

The lawyer then suggested that lawyers take the initiative to vote in more neutral office bearers to restore the Bar Council’s credibility as an impartial body.

Leong did not criticise the decision in Anwar’s case, but had directed his remarks at the prosecution of the opposition leader using rarely employed laws criminalising unnatural sex.

The Malaysian Bar is regularly accused of siding with the federal opposition by taking similar positions on political and legal reforms.

Last week, the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s 2014 ruling that had reversed Anwar’s acquittal of sodomising former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and sentenced the Permatang Pauh lawmaker to five years’ jail.

Anwar will be disqualified as MP and federal opposition leader within 14 days of his conviction unless he files a petition seeking a royal pardon.