'We can't poke into lawyers' private lives'

The Bar Council cannot go around 'sniffing' into the private lives of its members to uncover wrongdoing and can only initiate action against a lawyer if the complaint relates to his professional conduct. "Any criminal conduct that falls outside the scope of a lawyer's professional practice is beyond the Bar Council's jurisdiction. Blaming the Bar won't solve the problem," said the council's president Ragunath Kesavan.
"Other enforcement agencies such as the police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Bank Negara Malaysia or the Inland Revenue Board, have the mandate to conduct other investigations," he said adding the council had no authority to inquire into the private lives of its members.

He told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur that the Bar's powers as a statutory body were 'very, very limited' in that it could only take action on matters related to the professional conduct of its members.He added that it would be unreasonable to expect the Bar to 'sniff' out alleged criminal activity by any of it's members as even the police do not do so."If there are any errant lawyers, we don't want to see them out there but I must reiterate that we have to ensure justice is done. Not only for those remanded but also for the families of the victims," he said.

Ragunath's comments today were in apparent response to a laundry list of criticisms following the grisly Sosilawati murders for which two lawyers, who are also brothers, have been detained as suspects. Four persons including cosmetics millionaire Sosilawati Lawiya were believed to have been murdered on a farm in Banting, Selangor said to be owned by the suspects.

Disbarred in November

The Federal Territory branch of right-wing Malay rights NGO Pekida last week blamed the Bar for Sosilawati's murders. They accused the Bar of being responsible for the murders by allowing bad hats to continue practising law.The Islamic body held a demonstration calling for all Bar Council office-bearers to resign and allow a royal commission of inquiry to investigate the Bar's failure in keeping out 'bad' lawyers.

Ragunath confirmed that the two lawyer suspects involved in the quadruple murders had been disbarred in November last year by the Bar's Advocates and Solicitors Disciplinary Board but were allowed to continue practising after they obtained a stay of execution from the Kuala Lumpur High Court. He said the pair temporarily lost their right to practice over a land deal through which they were alleged to have engaged in fraudulent activities. However, t was unlikely, he said, that that land deal was related to the four murders.

Ragunath said the Bar did not condone any form of misconduct by any of its members but stressed that they will make sure the suspects are provided due representation. "No matter how outrageous or upset we are with a case, each person has a right to representation," he said.Ragunath said the Bar maintained stringent monitoring of its members with an average of 30 lawyers disbarred annually over the past five years for either cheating or committing serious criminal offences.He said the Bar's Advocates and Solicitors Disciplinary Board is so strict that some members of the Bar before it have even complained that it wasd biased against them.

Stop the speculation

Ragunath urged all parties, including the media, to refrain from making any speculation in relation to the recent four murder cases.He said the focus should be on the cases themselves in the hope of a speedy conclusion to police investigations and any possible court proceedings that may follow.The Bar will at the same time look into more ways to cooperate with the police on this and any case that comes along with a request sent in to newly-appointed Inspector-General of Police Ismail Omar for a meeting to find new areas of cooperation, he said.

"I think we're all very upset with what happened. In terms of the crime, it's hard to find something worse," he said.Meanwhile, according to Bernama, police today denied that they were slow in taking action against lawyers who had breached the country's law.Selangor police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said 72 investigation papers on malpractices and irregularities committed by lawyers in the state had been opened up during the last 10 years.He said police had never ignored any case against erring lawyers and had set up a task force two years ago to monitor the involvement of lawyers in any malpractice.He said the task force would meet every month to discuss development on cases involving lawyers in the state.

72 IPs on errant lawyers

"Over the past 10 years, Selangor police have opened up 72 investigation papers on malpractices and irregularities by lawyers."In some caees, there were more than one investigation paper opened up against certain lawyers," he was quoted as saying on his Facebook social networking page.Khalid said six lawyers and a 'runner' for a lawyer had been prosecuted pertaining to 10 of the 72 cases reported, including one who was linked to the murder of cosmetics millionaire Sosilawati Lawiya and three others.

Source : http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/143202