JULY 3 — More than 10 years ago, in his blog “Voice of Reason”, senior lawyer Roger Tan wrote:
“[T]here is an abysmal language skill especially the command of the English language among the new entrants for practice at the Bar. I have personally received a letter from a young lawyer asking me to “ensure that (our) clients would be executed the documents!”
“[W]e cannot ignore the fact that we are living in an increasingly competitive global environment where international business is transacted primarily in English.”
So, the command of the language matters, lest lawyers’ clients get executed instead of executing legal documents!
But the official language of the courts in Malaysia is Bahasa Melayu/Malaysia (BM). English may be used with the permission of the court/presiding judge.
Court documents are in BM, though it is not uncommon for the documents to be filed or submitted in both BM and English.
If Roger Tan had personally received a letter from a young lawyer asking him to ensure that the clients “would be executed”, I can also relate a personal experience of reading a submission that the defendant “tidak ada pertahanan bermerit”. It should be “tidak ada pembelaan bermerit” — “pembelaan” is the BM term for “defence”.
In another submission, it was written that “perkhidmatan Writ dan Pernyataan Tuntutan plaintiff terhadap defendan adalah tidak biasa”. It should be “penyampaian/penyerahan Writ dan Pernyataan Tuntutan plaintiff terhadap defendan adalah tidak teratur” — “penyampaian/penyerahan” is the BM term for “service” while “tidak teratur” is for “irregular”.
Thank God, the submissions were from law students. Of concerns though, they were from final year law students. They were stumped when asked to translate “leave of court” into BM. Is it “cuti mahkamah”? It is “kebenaran mahkamah”.
I say “Thank God’ because mistakes were corrected before they became new entrants into the legal profession.
Be that as it may, the simple point is this: command of the languages — English and BM — matters.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
