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 Your Excellency Tuan Yang Terutama Tun Datuk Seri Utama Mohd Khalil bin Yaakob, Your Lordship Datuk Wira Low Hop Bing, Judge Court of Appeal Malaysia and Datin Wira Lye Poh Kham, Your Lordship Dato' Abu Samah bin Nordin Judge High Court of Malaya Melaka and Datin Norizan bte Kamarudin, Mr Aloysious Ng, past Chairman, Malacca Bar and his wife Wong Pui Ling, members of the Judicial Service, Melaka, my fellow members of the Bar, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It is my real pleasure to welcome all of you to the 2006 Malacca Bar Annual Dinner and Dance. The Malacca Bar would especially like to thank His Excellency and Toh Puan for agreeing to once again grace our dinner function tonight. The Malacca Bar is deeply honoured. It is also our honour to have Datuk Wira Low Hop Bing and Datin Wira with us at tonight’s dinner. On behalf of the Malacca Bar, I take this opportunity to congratulate Datuk Wira Low and Datin Wira for your Lordship’s elevation to the Court of Appeal recently. We wish Your Lordship a happy tenure of office. I also thank Dato' Abu Samah, Datin and all the members of the Judicial Services Melaka for your presence here this evening. Your presence have made our function tonight more meaningful. I also express my appreciation to all my fellow members of the Malacca Bar and your guests for making time for tonight’s function making it one of the best-attended Annual Dinner in recent years. For your support, I am humbly indebted.
Your Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen, As I begin my speech, I am reminded of 3 valuable advice given to speakers especially speakers speaking to a hungry audience. (1) If you don’t strike oil in 20 minutes, stop boring! (2) There are 3 rules for speakers (i) Stand up to be seen. (ii) Speak up to be heard. (iii) Shut up to be appreciated. (3) Please remember that the mind cannot absorb more than the seat can endure. Your Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen, The Bar is supposed to be distinguished by its nobility. The legal profession is indeed a noble profession but nobility without the realisation and attainment of its true virtues is merely a pious word. Our virtue must lie not in the sense of being elitist but in making use of the opportunities given to us to touch lives and speak out for the weak and underprivileged. Whether therefore our profession stays noble and respected or not depends on what we, its members do and how we conduct ourselves. So very often, lawyers receive negative reviews from the ordinary member of the public. It is a common layman’s notion that a lawyer is a person who encourages strife and who splits hairs. We hear remarks such as this: (i) Arguing with a lawyer is like mud wrestling with a buffalo, after a while you realise that the buffalo actually enjoys it. (ii) What’s the difference between a lawyer and a boxing referee? A boxing referee doesn’t get paid more for a longer fight; and (iii) Also did you hear the breaking news this evening? A group of terrorists hijacked a plane full of lawyers. They contacted ground control with their list of demands and added that if their demands were not met, they would release one lawyer every hour. The advocate though not colour blind, is also perceived as a person having the magical ability to change black to white, a person who, knowing the truth tries to persuade the court to accept something else contrary to the truth. Faced with such hostile perception, the Bar must rise to the occasion and endeavour to prove both by its words and deeds that nothing is further from the truth. If I may borrow the words of Lord Chancellor Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain who said “lawyers are a race not universally popular but I believe universally found to be indispensable. We are proud of our calling and whatever other people may think of us, we regard ourselves as in the service of the community.” Your Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen, Such service must include, among others: (i) helping to ensure the existence of a responsible legislature elected by democratic process and an independent Judiciary and to be always vigilant in the protection of fundamental liberties and human rights. (ii) opposing any action by any authority which violates the Rule of law, and always engaging in the process of upholding a system of law based upon objective moral and social principles and not the arbitrary and oppressive rule of man. (iii) promoting knowledge of the law so as to inspire respect for the Rule of Law and an appreciation by all people of their rights under the law recognizing that the law is not an end in itself but simply a means to an end namely the attainment of justice. (iv) striving at all times to achieve the ideals of our profession demonstrating courage, competence and steadfast adherence to the pursuit of justice and fairness in society. Such service through the years have demanded of the Bar much effort, toil and sacrifice. Ours is a profession in which the very nature of our calling requires us to be constantly engaged in controversy and contention. This may cause the Bar to be unpopular with the authorities or the powers that be but we must not shirk our responsibility to do what is right. Your Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen, To serve our society optimally requires us to be informed, involved and in the forefront of our society. This requires us to acknowledge our profound influence in society by virtue of our profession. We need to be in the society to make a difference. We must speak out on societal issues and affairs and through our deeds, work for the removal of injustice, inequality and oppressiveness in our society. As we look around today, there are many issues that should concern us – legal illiteracy, mismanagement and abuse of public funds, rise of fundamentalism and radicalism, threats to our constitutional liberties, abuse of power and corruption. We may ask : What can I do as an individual? Is there anything I can do? Would what I do make any difference? A story was told of this man who was walking along a beach in Mexico. He saw a native boy walking on the beach. As the tide came in, tens of thousands of starfish were swept onto the shore – dried out and dying. The boy proceeded to pick up a starfish one at a time, walked out to the sea and threw it out to the sea. The man approached the boy, shook his head and told him “I really don’t think what you are doing would make any difference. There are so many of these starfish around!” The boy didn’t answer him. He took one more starfish and threw it out to the sea. As he threw the fish, he said “I bet it made a difference to that one.” That is what it is all about. We can’t solve all the issues that afflict our society today. But we can do whatever it is we can do. We may not do something big but we are not all called to do something big. We are only called to do something. Someone once said “Just because you cannot do everything does not mean you cannot do something!” Thomas Kelly in a “Testament of Devotion” puts it this way : “Begin where you are. Use what little you have been given, even if it is a grain of mustard seed.” We are called by God to be members of the legal profession. We are held accountable for who we are and what we have, not for what we don’t have. God loves us enough to accept us as we are. But He is too loving to let us stay where we are. We are familiar with that proverbial first step that begins all journeys. But we must still take that step. A man on his first day at work, stayed back a little after closing time. To his astonishment, he saw a dog going around the desks, cleaning ash trays and emptying waste paper baskets. Recovering from his initial shock, he said aloud: ”Hey, I didn’t know you could do that. ”To which the dog replied : “That’s my cheapskate boss for you. He wouldn’t hire a human being to do this. ”The man was so flabbergasted, he blurted out: “Hey, I didn’t know you can talk. Let me tell your boss about this.” The dog countered : “Oh no – you don’t. If my boss know I can talk, he’ll make me answer the phone too.” Sometimes we don’t know what we are capable of by denying what we possibly can. Like that dog in the anecdote above we prefer to hide our ability and under-perform instead, afraid that others may require more of us. May I appeal to my fellow members of the Bar here tonight not to under declare your talents and abilities. Use them to serve others for the good of our profession and our community. All of us have something to contribute. Let us work together regardless of our background, faith, affiliations, colour or race. A successful lawyer is not necessary someone who earns his 1st million at the age of 30 or someone who drives a big expensive car. A successful lawyer is someone who makes a difference in another person’s life – a lawyer who comes to the defence of those who have less in life and thus more need in law Charles Dickens once observed, “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another.” We can’t be a loser when we contribute to someone else’s life. Let us be true to our calling. Your Excellency, Ladies & Gentlemen, I have taken up a good part of your evening. I thank you for your patience in listening to this speech. It reminds me of a counsel which has been persisting for some days in a long and tedious submission before the Judge. Noticing the pained expression on the judge’s face, he said “My Lord, I hope I have not exhausted your Lordship’s patience. The Judge replied : “You need not worry about that. You exhausted my patience yesterday.” I hope that I have not exhausted your patience. Thank you for being such splendid listeners. Have an enjoyable evening and have fun.
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