KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14, 2014:
The cab-rank rule which bounds Edmund Bon, the lawyer for the Selangor Menteri Besar, has an “exit door” which will allow him to excuse himself from the case if he wanted to.
MCA Youth Legal Bureau chairman Eric Choo earlier said Bon was bound by the rule to represent Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim in suing The Malaysian Insider’s editors and owners.
However, an intern at Lawyers for Liberty, Adrian Lim Chee En said the rule provided “exit doors” to the lawyer if he chooses to use them.
“The rule is Incorporated into Rule 2 of the (Malaysian) Legal Profession (Practice and Etiquette) Rules 1978 and is worded in a way to suggest that if a client comes to you, you are obliged to take the case.
He said the rule was a British invention, however it was different in England because it had specified the circumstances that the lawyer could reject a case.“However the rule allows for you to turn the case down under ‘special circumstances’ like for instance if it went against the principles or beliefs of that particular lawyer,” he told The Rakyat Post.

“There was no guideline to the Malaysian rule, therefore it was up to the lawyer to decide if he was comfortable with the case or not.”
He said under these special circumstances, Bon could have chosen to not represent Abdul Khalid in the suit.
“The fact that Bon was known to be a human rights lawyer and an advocate for media freedom meant that there were options for him. There were doors open for him to use.
“The question now was which did he value more, his advocacy for media freedom or the case?”