Lee Swee Seng JCA:

[1] Once in a while there is a massive revelation and various quarters would sensationalise and capitalise on it. However the issue before the Court, remote and far removed from the reverberations that first arose from its revelation is this: whether what was said by a lawyer in a conversation on a handphone regarding matters relating to the appointment to top positions in the Malaysian judiciary amounted to misconduct of interfering with and influencing judicial appointments.

[2] Related to that question is the issue of the admissibility of a video clip of the conversation and the event in the house of the said lawyer when the original recording is not available but the maker of it confirmed the accuracy and authenticity of the video clip.

[3] The Bar Council made its complaint vide its letter of 26 September 2007 to the Disciplinary Board ("DB") as it believed that the person captured in the video recording that was accessed through the website of an online news portal, Malaysiakini, is the appellant, a senior member of the Malaysian Bar and the subject matter of the conversation so captured was egregious enough to warrant an investigation into what the B