KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 — About 500 lawyers from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor today received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccination, under an initiative to secure priority vaccination for lawyers throughout peninsular Malaysia due to their essential roles in the administration of justice.
The initiative to prioritise the Covid-19 vaccination of Malaysian Bar members, including chambering students, is spearheaded by the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee in partnership with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti).
Known as the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee’s Vaccine Delivery Initiative, the project started through the Kuala Lumpur Bar’s direct engagement with Mosti minister Khairy Jamaluddin. It is also open to all Malaysian Bar members located throughout the peninsula.
Kuala Lumpur Bar chairman Vivekananda Sukumaran said lawyers are also frontliners and that some Malaysian Bar members have lost their lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Participants of this initiative will also be wearing blue as a sign of solidarity for members of the Bar who have fallen victim to Covid-19.
“We have lost members to this pandemic and vaccination of everyone is of utmost importance, especially frontliners such as lawyers who are part of the justice system, who do not stop operating even during the many lockdowns,” he said in a statement.
In a joint statement with Kuala Lumpur Bar honorary secretary Alvin Oh Seong Yew, the duo noted that the first batch involves 1,908 Malaysian Bar members nationwide who had registered for the initiative before June 23, and that they should have received their Covid-19 vaccination appointment dates by July 15.
For lawyers who are in this first batch and who are from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, they are expected to receive their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (Mitec) vaccination centre between today and July 15.
Malay Mail understands that over 1,300 of the first batch of 1,908 lawyers are those in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor and are expected to be vaccinated at Mitec, while the remaining lawyers from other states will undergo vaccination in their respective states.
In the statement, Oh confirmed that around 500 of the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor lawyers had received their first dose in Mitec today.
“As of today, about 500 members and pupils who have registered in the first batch have received their first dose. We’ll be in Mitec until 15 July 2021 assisting the process and hopefully we’ll have all KL and Selangor Bar members who have registered vaccinated smoothly soon,” he said.
Vivekananda and Oh said that the details of the second batch of over 3,000 Malaysian Bar members nationwide who had signed up for the initiative are currently being submitted to the relevant authorities for Covid-19 vaccination dates.
“This initiative will endeavour to ensure as many members as possible are vaccinated. Members are urged to register with this initiative,” they said in a call to Malaysian Bar members throughout peninsular Malaysia.
The Malaysian Bar is a professional body for lawyers in peninsular Malaysia, and its statistics online as of February 28 shows that it is representing 20,384 lawyers.
The Malaysian Bar’s governing body Bar Council had on June 12 appointed Vivekananda as its National Covid-19 Vaccine Delivery Coordinator.
This meant that the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee’s initiative to secure Covid-19 vaccination priority for lawyers was expanded to cover all members and pupils of the Malaysian Bar, with the requirement that interested lawyers and chambering pupils register through the form provided by the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee.
In a July 1 circular to Malaysian Bar members, Vivekananda in his capacity as the Bar Council’s National Covid-19 Vaccine Delivery Coordinator had said such registration does not serve as a guarantee but said efforts would be made to engage the relevant authorities to speed up the provision of vaccination appointment dates.
