Thirty-nine candidates have filed nomination papers for the 16 elected seats for the 2024/2025 term. The president will be elected from among them at the Malaysian Bar’s next annual general meeting (AGM) in March 2024.

A senior lawyer said Shafee, a member of the council during the 2006/2009 term, could be eyeing the presidency after his long-drawn battle with the council leadership over several years.

When contacted, Shafee did not deny claims that he could eventually go for the top post. “You can’t predict the future,” he told FMT.

In 2021, the Bar accepted and published a motion to censure the senior lawyer, who had held roadshows in early 2015 about then opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy II conviction.

The motion was supposed to be debated during the Bar’s AGM in March that year, but was stopped after Shafee obtained an injunction.

In October 2021, the Federal Court ruled that the Bar should have lodged a complaint over the lawyer’s alleged misconduct before tabling the motion against Shafee and publishing it to all members.

Following an appeal in 2022, the Federal Court upheld its earlier decision that the Bar had breached its statutory duty towards Shafee and that he was entitled to damages to be assessed by the High Court.

In the upcoming election, the Bar said, the number of candidates is a notable increase from last year’s 27 and is the highest recorded figure ever in the Bar’s history.

Approximately 21,590 members are eligible to cast their votes in the election.

They have until Nov 30 to return their postal ballot papers and the results will be announced the following day.