Lawyers for Lawyers is concerned about the initiation of sedition investigations against four lawyers of the Malaysian Bar: Karen Cheah, Hector Fernandez, Francis Pereira and Shanmugam Ramasam.
On 19 March 2016, a motion was tabled at the Annual General Meeting of the Malaysian Bar calling on Attorney General Mohamed Apandi Ali, to resign over his handling of a corruption case involving Prime Minister Najib Razak concerning the misappropriation of hundreds of millions of US dollars from the state-owned investment company 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). The motion was approved by 744 members of the Bar who voted in favor and whilst 62 voted against and 12 abstained.
Following the motion, on 31 March 2016, Karen Cheah – the Secretary of the Malaysian Bar – Charles Hector Fernandez, Francis Pereira and Shanmugam Ramasamy were picked up by the police to record their statements. All four lawyers are currently under investigation under Section 4(1)(a) of the 1948 Sedition Act.
Lawyers for Lawyers called on the Malaysian authorities to drop the sedition investigations against Karen Cheah, Hector Fernandez, Francis Pereira and Shanmugam Ramasam.
