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Bar president Karen Cheah said the Bar would look to level charges of breach of statutory duty and failure to uphold the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 against the police.
“We, the Bar, are not afraid to take action if there is a need to,” she said. “We will definitely take this to court.”
Cheah said they had followed the appropriate procedures and submitted the relevant documents to the authorities in the lead-up to the walk, adding that the police had no valid reason to prevent it.
“Police failed to ensure we were able to exercise our constitutional right to peacefully assemble as stated in the Federal Constitution.
“This was a form of abuse of power as instead of facilitating our walk, they went out of their way to intimidate us,” she said at a press conference after this morning’s gathering.
Cheah said the Bar would conduct a “fact-finding” mission, gathering photographs and videos from the gathering as evidence of police transgression.
An estimated 500-strong crowd of lawyers had gathered at Padang Merbok this morning for a march to Parliament and to submit a memorandum to the government to uphold judicial independence.
The Bar’s walk was organised to voice its dissatisfaction over alleged intimidation towards the judiciary, particularly over the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s investigation into Court of Appeal judge Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.
Malaysian Bar members negotiated with the police at the scene but the talks broke down after the authorities said only 20 lawyers were allowed to march to the Parliament building, which the Bar rejected.
The lawyers tried to go ahead with the march but failed to break through the police barricade formed at both ends of the Padang Merbok car park.
Deputy law minister Mas Ermieyati Samsudin later arrived at the scene, accepting the memorandum from Cheah. She said she would hand it over to Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
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