Australia's PLT debacle affects Australian lawyers in search of legal work in Malaysia and Singapore-Trust placed in assuarances from senior Australian judicial officers of high quality training and rigorous admission procedures in Australia obviously misplaced

 by Ganesh Shathevan  

The Law Council Of Australia  (LCA)has never been reticent when it comes to criticising Malaysia's legal system ( see story below) . However, the LCA  has still not said anything about 

Australia's lawyer certification and admission debacle

 , which has arisen as a result of the current Chief Justice NSW, Andrew Bell, rubbishing the compulsory Practical Legal Training (PLT) course, which is a condition  for admission to practise.  The Chief Justice's condemnation, going as it does to  the very root of admission to practise, affects literally every lawyer who has been admitted to practise in Australia, including the very many who seek work in the two common law jurisdictions in this region,  Malaysia and Singapore. 

Their permission to practise in whatever capacity in both countries is predicated on their admission in Australia, and the assurance from Australia's lawyers and judges in charge of admissions that their lawyers are of an acceptable (in fact superior) standard. The trust that Malaysian and Singaporean authorities have placed in that assurance is obviously misplaced and it is now for the LCA to address the issue , publicly.

TO BE READ WITH 

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Assisted by DFAT,Australian lawyers take aim at Mahathir,while seeking new markets in Malaysia

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Caption: Chris Leong, Past President, Bar Council of Malaysia, Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Richard Malanjum, Chief Justice of the Federal Court, Malaysia, Arthur Moses SC, President, Law Council of Australia, Elizabeth Espinosa, President, Law Society of New South Wales, Datuk Seri Panglima David Wong Dak Wah, Chief Judge of The High Court of Sabah and Sarawak, and Andrew Goledzinowski AM, Australian High Commissioner in Malaysia.

The photograph above was taken in mid-to late January 2019 .Law Council of Australia President, Arthur Moses SC, travelled to Malaysia and Hong Kong for his first official engagements to open the legal year.In Kuala Lumpur Mr Moses  was "invited to give an address at the Australian High Commission, attended by members of Malaysia’s judiciary, including Chief Justice Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Richard Malanjum, members of the Malaysian Bar Association, and High Commissioner to Malaysia, Andrew Goledzinowski AM."

In his speech Mr Moses decided to re-visit the 1988 dismissal of then Chief Justice Tun Salleh Abbas:He said:

  It has been 30 years since the 1988 Judicial Crisis, which saw the Lord President of the Supreme Court of Malaysia, Tun Salleh Abas, dismissed for “judicial misbehaviour”. His crime – speaking out publicly in defence of the judiciary. The crisis saw two other Supreme Court Judges also removed from the bench. Two decades on, in 2008, an Eminent Persons Panel convened on the initiative of the Malaysian Bar found all three had been improperly removed from office, and that Prime Minister Mahathir’s involvement in the crisis had been "unmistakably a direct unabashed attack on the rule of law with intent to subdue, if not subvert, the independence of the judiciary". Though what happened in 1988 was unacceptable, it has steeled Malaysia’s legal fraternity with an unrivalled strength and determination.

This direct attack on Mahathir is intriguing, given that he has been recently re-elected prime minister (despite it seems the disapproval of Mr Moses, the Australian Government, and the Australian legal fraternity), and given that over the the past 31 years much has been said by the key players in that incident, including the formerAttorney General Abu Talib Othman  who in January 2018 is reported to have said:

“However, he (Mahathir) was acting on the command of the then Yang di-Pertuan Agung Sultan Iskandar Sultan Ismail,” he said referring to the former Sultan of Johor.

Abu Talib said that he had seen the note – written and signed by the King – that was given to the PM commanding him to remove Salleh as Lord President and to replace Salleh with Abdul Hamid Omar.

“I went to see the PM and told him that neither he nor the King can remove a sitting Lord President, as that was against the constitution.

“It was a very challenging moment as the PM then asked, ‘can you ignore the command of the King?’. However, I advised and reminded him of the oath of office he took as PM to protect and defend the constitution,” he said.

Abu Talib said that Mahathir advised him to inform the King personally and he did that, going to Johor for the meeting.

“The King insisted that action be taken, despite me saying that neither him nor the PM could remove a sitting Lord President.

“He (the King) instead suggested that it be done in accordance with the constitution. So, I went back to the PM, and informed that any action taken must be done in compliance with the constitution......”

It is important to recall that Talib Othman made these public statements in January 2018 when almost everyone believed that then PM Najib Razak would be re-elected, despite Mahathir's determined (and eventually successful) challenge to Najib  and his party's control of the Malaysian Government. Malay politics dictate that punishment must follow any show of support for the opposition against the  ruling chieftain, and Talib would have understood that. 

All this seems to have escaped DFAT and Mr Moses, who was probably in Kuala Lumpur promoting Australian legal services. The President of the NSW Law Society Ms Elizabeth Espinosa was also present at that event at the Australian High Commission (see photo above).

As this writer has noted before, DFAT has not hidden its preference for Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister. Nevertheless, promoting a trade mission based on that sentiment does not 
seem a winning strategy.

END