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KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 7, 2010): The Bar Council is inviting  the 1Malaysia Youth Graduands Club to meet up with its constitutional law committee "any time" to air its grievances over the Rakyat Guides distributed by the committee.

Bar Council president Ragunath Kesavan and the deputy co-chairman of the committee, Syahredzan Johan, extended the invitation today following a police report lodged by the club at the Serdang police station on Saturday against the distribution of the guides, purportedly over its "seditious" wording.

Ragunath said the Rakyat Guides were part of the Bar Council's MyConstitution campaign launched in November last year to educate the Malaysian public and create greater awareness about the Federal Constitution.

"There is no seditious intent or element, or an objective to amend the Constitution or campaign for an amendment to any of its articles," he said.

The two-year campaign is being undertaken by the committee, made up of more than 200 members, including lawyers, university lecturers, journalists, law students and the public.

"Our objective is to make it easier for the people to understand the Constitution. The main objective of the campaign is for the people to understand the Constitution and our flyers are only to make understanding it easier for the people," Ragunath said.

"We regret that such a campaign, which has a noble objective and has been well received by the public and both sides of the political arena, has been misinterpreted as having seditious elements. The committee took care to avoid any opinion on the Constitution. That is not their objective."

Syahredzan said the allegations raised by the club, including one that the committee was out to plant doubt in the people about the Constitution, were serious.

"This is a campaign aimed at getting the people to love, not hate, the Constitution," he said.

He invited the club to approach the committee with their grouses. "I ask the club to show us where the sedition in our Rakyat Guides is. Our doors are always open. Come and see us and point out what is wrong," he said.

Committee deputy co-chairman Mahaletchumi Balakrishnan said: "It appears that the club has made the report because they believe we have stated that the Constitution can be amended and that the Malaysian people, because they elect the MPs, can influence constitutional amendments.

"This is true, and it is stated in Article 159 that the Constitution can be amended. In fact, in the past 53 years, the Constitution has been amended more than 40 times, with approximately 650 individual amendments," she said.

Mahaletchumi said the Bar Council will cooperation in any police investigation.

Ragunath also refuted an allegation that the committee had foreign funding.

"With regards to the involvement of foreign organisations, this campaign has been fully funded by the Bar Council, with donations from interested parties such as state governments," he said.