A salute to George

Tribute to a legend: George with his loyal companions, Great Danes Hamlet (sitting) and Dante (lying down), at his home in Ampang, Selangor.

“At this table next to mine were two lawyers who looked like they were 10 years old at the Bar. One of them was saying, ‘Who is Christopher Leong talking about?’ The other guy said, ‘It’s a judge lah, VC George.’ In the context that all the other recipients, barring Mahadev Shankar who is here and very much alive, were all very much dead before they got the award, this guy said, ‘Good heavens! Is VC George dead?’”

This is vintage George. Tan Sri Vadaketh Chacko George, who will be 87 on Dec 13, was replying to the citation from the Malaysian Bar’s 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Bar Council instituted the award in 2011 to recognise members who have demonstrated particular dedication and exemplary lifetime service, and made invaluable and outstanding contributions to the Bar. 

The previous recipients were Raja Aziz Addruse (posthumously) in 2012, Datuk Dr Sir Peter Mooney in 2013 (who passed away in 2015), Datuk Mahadev Shankar in 2014, Dr Radhakrishna Ramani (posthumously) in 2015, and Karpal Singh (posthumously) in 2016. 

If George’s father’s wish had come to be, Malaysia would have lost a legal luminary to the medical profession or the world of dentistry at least. George was admitted into the Dental Faculty University of Malaya in Singapore in 1951. Within months he knew that teeth were not his calling and he took the SS Corfu to London to read law. Malaysians have his Latin and Mathematics teacher V.K Arumugam to thank because he encouraged George to read law.

Many people have a mission to change the world. Called to the English Bar in 1957, George takes life in his stride and changes things because it is the right time, the right thing or plain common sense. 

Right time

Some countries still dither over whether to limit the term of their presidents/prime ministers. George - who served on the Bar Council from 1965 to 1980 - settled the matter the last century. 

In reading George’s citation, Leong says there were no term limits for the Bar president when George and Chan Hua Eng were young leaders.

There was a president who had served continuously for seven years. So when Chan and George were elected president in 1973-1974 and 1974-1976, respectively, they started the convention of president for a maximum of two terms even before this was enshrined in the Legal Profession Act 1976, adds Leong, who was president from 2013-2015.