Bar Council on the controversial polls

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Bar is a victim of fraud and not the perpetrator of any act of dishonesty, says Bar Council chairman Yeo Yang Poh.

Commenting on the recent Bar Council election in which 50 forged ballots were later found, he said the incident was a deliberate attack of sabotage against the Bar and an attempt to embarrass the body.

He said it was absurd for some quarters to accuse the Bar of lacking in integrity for a fraud that it did not commit.

“The Bar is a victim of the deliberate act of one or more fraudulent persons with sinister motives.

“We are the victims and it is not fair to point to the victim that its name has been tarnished,” Yeo, who is also the Malaysian Bar president, said at a press conference yesterday.

The council had lodged a police report over the matter.

It is standing by its decision that the election is not null and void, as recommended by the election’s three scrutineers.

It wanted the scrutineers to conduct a verification process on all the ballots but two of the scrutineers disagreed, saying that they did not want to be accused of tampering with evidence.

A member of the Bar had also filed a suit against the body to seek court orders that the election should not be nullified just because 50 forged ballots were found and discarded.

Yeo said the fraud was “a deliberate act to sabotage” the election and not to influence the election result.

“This seems clear from the fact that all 50 forged ballots carried serial numbers that fell outside those assigned to valid ballots,” he said.

He said the election this year was carried out the same way as in previous years but nobody had tried to sabotage it in the past.

“It is likely that the person is a member of the Bar, but we also cannot discount the possibility that it is not. We simply do not know at this stage,” Yeo said.

He said the Bar would not succumb to the saboteur’s plan – which was for the council to declare the election null and void.

“We will now leave it to the court to decide and give our full co-operation to the police.”

The Bar, Yeo said, was an important and vocal institution, adding that there were perhaps some quarters who were happy to see the Bar embarrassed.

“But the Bar will not be easily discouraged.

“The Bar will stand the test of time, and defeat the unfair criticisms that some have chosen to levy on the Bar in an irresponsible and unjustified manner,” he said