PETALING JAYA: The Bar Council has formed a full-fledged committee to stop touts and is also looking at whether legislation needs to be tightened to stop such practices.
“Touting in the Malaysian legal sphere means the involvement of a third party who introduces clients and shares legal fees with a member of the Bar,” says the Anti-Touting Committee chairman, BK Pillai.
The Bar Council member said they had a roundtable discussion with parties such as the police, the judiciary and even the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to tackle the matter earlier this year.
“There is a reporting mechanism put in place by the Bar whereby anyone can lodge a complaint against touting anywhere in Peninsular Malaysia.”
“The committee had initially considered ‘relaxing’ certain third-party involvement in some areas, for instance marketing, and then properly regulating it. This proposition was not accepted by the council, and the proposal was abandoned.
“We are now looking at whether legislation needs to be tightened with regard to making touting a more serious offence with increased penalties.
“Currently, touting comes under the Malaysian Minor Offences Act 1955 with a maximum fine of RM500 and/or 6 months’ imprisonment. Those involved are not deterred by this,” he said.
Pillai explained that touting is clearly prohibited under the Legal Profession Act and other rules and regulations of the Bar.
The Bar Council, he said, had tried tackling the issue whenever there was a complaint.
However, he said there was always no completion to the complaints or reports lodged; thus, it was extremely difficult for action to be taken against the offending lawyer.
Pillai said it was usually not the client who complains, but other members of the Bar, often without enough proof.
On how touting is affecting other lawyers’ livelihoods, lawyer Datuk N. Sivananthan said the problem lies with telling the difference between touts who are lawyers and those masquerading as lawyers.
“For those masquerading as lawyers, the offence is clear: that is, cheating by impersonation. Where a lawyer is involved, the issue is whether the member of the public sought advice or whether the lawyer was touting and providing false information in order to be engaged.
“As one can imagine, the case would end up as a ‘he says, she says’ scenario and be very difficult to prove.
He said honest lawyers not only lose work because of these touts, but they even have clients being “stolen” from them.
The greatest worry is that poor or wrong advice could jeopardise the position of the accused and cause unnecessary financial losses to the families.
“The best method to address this is to have sufficient information in the corridors of the courts to warn the public to be wary of touts. It is being done now,” he said.
