LOWER COURT CAR STICKERS NOW AVAILABLE

We are pleased to inform you that the Lower Court car stickers for the year 2009 have been issued and the Court has allotted a limited number for lawyers.

Please be informed that the stickers will be distributed on a “first come first served basis”. We will not accept any bookings for the same. The stickers will only be allocated to members who have made full payment. Further, we shall only allocate a maximum of two(2) stickers per firm due to the limited number of the same.

Applications forms are available at the Perak Bar Secretariat and closing date for the application is on / or before the 7th February 2009. Please make payment when submitting the application form. Members are required to pay the sum of RM30.00 per sticker by cheque only made payable to the “Perak Bar Committee”.

Yours faithfully,

Danial Rahman bin Yang Razali

Honorary Secretary

PERAK BAR AGM

To all Perak Bar Members,

Please be reminded that the Annual General Meeting of the Perak Bar will be held at 3pm on Friday, the 20th day of February 2009 at Ipoh High Court No. 1. The notices have already been sent out and members should have received them or will receive them soon.

Kindly make all efforts to come for the AGM.

PALESTINE HUMANITARIAN FUND

The Bar Council has set up a Humanitarian Fund to collect donations from members of the Bar to assist Palestinians affected by the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The National Young Lawyers Committee of the Bar Council (NYLC) has been entrusted with the task of collecting funds for this humanitarian effort. In this respect, the NYLC will work closely with Mercy Malaysia, and all monies collected by the Bar Council will be channeled to them who currently have an ongoing project to send medicine and food to Gaza via Egypt. Since donations to Mercy Malaysia are tax-exempt, you are hereby advised to follow the followings steps in

order to obtain this exemption:-

Step 1 : Deposit money (whatever amount) into the Bar Council Account

Relevant info of the Account Name

Bar Council

CIMB Bank Berhad 6 Jalan Tun Perak, 50050 Kuala Lumpur

Account No: 1408-1205691-05-8

Step 2 : Fax to the Bar Council (+603-20261313) to the attention of the

‘ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT', where the following details must be included:-

a. Name of Donor

b. NRIC of Donor (if Individual donation) or Legal Firm's name (if donated by the Firm)

c. Relevant Contact details – Tel & Fax No, e-mail address, and Address of the Donor.

Members who choose to donate by way of a cheque must issue the same in favour

of “Bar Council” by marking “Palestine Humanitarian Fund” at the back of the

cheque. For purposes of tax exemption, kindly also provide the details as stated

in step 2 above. The cheque must be sent to:

Bar Council Malaysia

(Attn: Ms Lily Aw, Accounts Department)

No. 13, 15 & 17, Leboh Pasar Besar , 50050 Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia

In the absence of any such details, we will assume that the donors have preferred

to remain anonymous.

Please note that all donations should reach us before 1 February 2009.

It is hoped that the legal fraternity will once again rise to the occasion and show

that we care for the unfortunate victims in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

MANALAH KAWAN-KAWAN KU?

While waiting in court for my matter to be called up I started fiddling with my phone, as I am wont to do, and started scrolling through my contacts list. After scrolling through, I realized that I had very few Malay contacts in my phonebook which got me thinking and I started to make a mental headcount of the number of Malay friends I had, and by friends I don’t mean mere acquaintances. I began to struggle with the count after 8. I have a phonebook of almost 300+ numbers and I only had 8 Malay friends listed in it! My mind railed against the imbalance as I struggled to identify the cause.

During my school days I remember having lots of Malay friends whom I used to spend hours with playing “police sentry’, gala panjang, konda kondi, marbles and other youthful pursuits. However, as I delved deeper into my past I saw that by Form 5 I only really had 1 Malay friend, whose father was also a lawyer, which reminds me of a funny story. There were 3 of us sitting together in class and coincidentally all of us were lawyers sons. It didn’t take very much for us to engage in any manner of mischief and one day our Bahasa Malaysia teacher had enough and shouted “Kamu! Anak Lawyer! Ada Tuisyen!” to which we all replied “Yang mana cikgu? Ada tiga la!” causing said cikgu to storm out of the class in exasperation.

While reading law in England, I was friends with many Malays as we used to play football together and in particular with this particular senior named “Obot” because he used to act and move a little like a robot. I remember days of merry fellowship learning how to cook nasi lemak, taking part in buka puasa in University, going for open house in London and participating in the dikir barat for our Malaysian night. Lots of fond and happy memories and perversely I never felt more Malaysian than when I was abroad. I suppose as the minority in University, we banded together due to our roots and the many common factors we had in common.

Those days seem so far away now like a distant fanciful dream. If I could live and interact with mutual acceptance, respect and celebration of our differences and acknowledgment of our similarities and the ties that bind us in England, why does it now seem to be so difficult in Malaysia? These days, the differences between us seem to be irreconcilable. I read the papers these days and only see conflict, intolerance, hate mongering, racism and religious polarization. When a politician comes out in public saying that a particular race are merely squatters in the country of their birth how then do you expect the forging of a Malaysian identity or national unity when you are written off as being a temporal resident or worse, somehow “2^nd Class”. Unsurprisingly, in light of such sentiments, is it any wonder why our nation is suffering a brain drain of potentially crippling ramifications. I don’t have the page space or time to delve deeper into the analysis or reasons for our current predicament but I know that efforts need to be taken to ensure that race relations in our country need to be improved and strengthened, empty slogans and government funded infomercials proclaiming national unity are merely token efforts with no apparent value. Until we realize that we are all in the same boat and our futures are firmly interwoven, our relationships with each other will continue to be superficial and unfulfilling. Our country must evolve and the coming generations must join hands irrespective of creed, race or religion to forge a path for the future and fulfill our joint destinies and create a truly Malaysian Malaysia.

Its Raya now, and I should be enjoying lemang, rendang, bergedel and numerous other Hari Raya delicacies with my Malay friends but instead I’m at home writing this article and dutifully munching on my Hainanese Chicken Rice. Rather indicative of the present I would say. I have faith though. Im sure next year I’ll be gorged full of gorgeous Raya delicacies lying on my sofa snoring gently.

Submitted by

Gavin Tang

ISSUES TO BE RAISED

Dear Members,

The Bar Council will be meeting the Honourable Chief Justice on Wednesday, 21.1.2009. Kindly email any issues that you may wish to be raised by 17.1.2009 so that they can be forwarded to the Bar Council for a list to be compiled.

Regards,

Asbir Kaur

Perak Bar Representative

to the Bar Council