There have been heated debates among the legal fraternity on the amendment to Legal Profession Act. In fact, both the Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara have passed the amendment. It is now pending at Royal Assent.
There are two opposing views. To me, it is the pragmatism versus idealism. All of them agree on the quorum clause as well as young-lawyer clause. However, they disagree on the issue of secrecy clause, DB proceedings and appeal/judicial review clause.
The idealists camp has provided their input to Senator YB Dato Rhina Bhar. I have read the Hansard and the speech by Rhina Bhar was more or less the same input as discuss in the Malaysian Legal Forum.
It is uphill task to reconcile the interest of every party. If you want to go for the United Nations type of consensus building, it is time consuming.
For those who are going to participate in the discussion at a forum organised by Bar Council this Saturday, I would think that they should at least read the Hansard particulary speech by Rhina Bhar as well as the wind-up speech by Kayveas.
I shall put a caveat on this. The Malaysian Court, in ascertaining the intention of the legislature, will only refer to the speech by the Minister. The speeches by MPs as well as Senators will not be refer to. However, the speeches will be helpful to those interested to understand the nuances of the issue.
Singapore has a clause which enable the court to have recourse to statements made in Parliament to ascertain legislative intention in the event of any ambiguity in a statutory provision.
Section 9A of Singapore Interpretation Act states that interpretation of a provision of a written law shall include, inter alia, any relevant material in any official record of debates in Parliament.
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