“In this respect, the views of the Bar Council or relevant bodies must not be lightly brushed off by the courts in the pretext of equity or fairness, fitting the taste of individual judges,” Justice Hamid Sultan Abu Backer said.
He said the legal profession was a noble one and those intending to practice law could not do so if there was objection by the relevant bodies within the framework of the Legal Profession Act 1976.
“The test for admission is one of qualification and discipline. Equitable and or fairness principles have no role to play in considering a petition for admission,” he said.
Hamid said this in the judgment to strike out the petition of retired police officer Jude Blacious Pereira to be called to the Bar.
Pereira, 64, was the the investigating officer in Anwar Ibrahim’s second sodomy trial.
On Oct 21 last year, Hamid led a three-man bench to allow the council’s appeal to strike out Pereira’s petition as he had failed to comply with a conditional order made by a High Court for him to undergo a human rights course organised by the council or the Perak Bar committee.
The 19-page Court of Appeal’s judgment was posted on the judiciary’s website two days ago.
The council’s appeal came about after Justice SM Komathy Suppiah in March last year varied the conditional order made by Justice Lee Swee Seng a year earlier.
Hamid in the judgment said the court agreed with submission by lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, who appeared for the council , that Komathy failed to give sacrosanct value to the terms of the order made by Lee.
“An order of a judge of concurrent jurisdiction in the same matter must be respected and given effect to unless the learned judge (Komathy) was hearing an application for variation of the order,” he said.
The council had in the past also objected to Pereira’s admission to the Bar following his actions as Brickfields CID chief to arrest five lawyers who were representing those who were arrested during a candlelight vigil for a human rights activist.
The Malaysian Human Righs Commission held an inquiry and found Pereira not to be a credible witness.
Subsequently,the High Court in Kuala Lumpur allowed a civil suit and ordered the government pay each lawyer RM75,000 in damages for unlawful detention.
Meanwhile, Pereira, who is a security firm manager in Ipoh, told FMT that he has filed an appeal to the Federal Court.