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The Malaysia Middle Temple Association (TMMTA)

By Sathish Ramachandran

I have such poignant memories of the time I spent at Middle Temple. I especially remember:

• visiting the 4 Inns of Court in London, short listing Lincoln’s Inn and Middle Temple and deciding on Middle Temple on account of its Library;

• becoming a Student Member of Middle Temple in the Summer Holidays after my 2nd Year of reading Law at the University of Kent at Canterbury and then Dining at Middle Temple Hall;

• thoroughly enjoying the Dinners at Middle Temple that I dined 32 times instead of the mandatory 24;

• attending the Special Dinners held to commemorate the visit of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark (as Honorary Bencher, in 1992) and Her Royal Highness Diana, Princess of Wales (as Royal Bencher, in 1993);

• meeting Princess Diana and listening to her speak of her visit to the Taj Mahal and her 2 young children;

• Council of Legal Education’s Trinity Bar Examinations 1993; and

• signing with trepidation the Roll of Barristers on the night of my Call to the Bar as we were each asked to sign the book while standing up and when it was my turn, the black ink pen ran somewhat dry.

Over the past 5 years, Malaysian Barristers from Lincoln’s Inn, Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn have, in that order, each formed a Malaysian Chapter of their Inn. TMMTA (pronounced “tim-ta”) is the acronym for “The Malaysia Middle Temple Association”, which is, finally, work-in-progress. I am grateful particularly to the Under-Treasurer Air Commodore Peter Hilling, for his encouragement and assistance, and to Ms. Kristine McGlothlin, the Editor of The Middle Templar, for giving me the opportunity to inform and update everyone on the progress of and our plans for TMMTA.

The impetus for the formation of TMMTA was occasioned around May 2009, when I discussed the idea with The Right Honourable Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin bin Abdullah, a former Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Malaysia between 2000 and 2003 and a Middle Templar (call date – 19th July 1966). Tun Dzaiddin himself had been contemplating the formation of a Middle Temple society in Malaysia. With the assistance of the Secretariat of the Bar Council of Malaysia, the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee and Middle Temple itself, I alerted fellow Middle Templars in Malaysia and 95 of them have todate registered their interest in becoming members of TMMTA.

The Under-Treasurer alerted me to the fact that Tan Sri Cecil WM Abraham (call date - May 1969), a very accomplished litigator and arbitrator in Malaysia and a Door Tenant at 3 Verulam Buildings in London had, in September 2008, met with the Under-Treasurer and Master Christopher Symonds at Middle Temple to discuss the formation of a Malaysian Chapter. With Tun Dzaiddin’s guidance, I approached Tan Sri Cecil and we decided to combine our efforts to form TMMTA.

On 3rd April 2010, 24 Malaysian Middle Templars met in Kuala Lumpur for Afternoon Tea (hosted by Tun Dzaiddin) and agreed to constitute a Pro-Tem Committee to undertake the formation of TMMTA. The requisite application for the registration of TMMTA as a Society under the Malaysian Societies Act 1966 will be submitted to the Registrar of Societies in Kuala Lumpur before the end of 2010 and we hope to launch TMMTA by mid-2011.

I estimate that there are close to 600 Middle Templars in Malaysia. We are privileged to have had 3 Middle Templars as former Heads of the Malaysian Judiciary – Tun Suffian Hashim, Tun Salleh Abbas and Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah.

The most illustrious Middle Templar from Malaysia is the late Tun Mohamed Suffian bin Hashim, who read Law at Gonville & Caius College Cambridge, was called to Middle Temple in 1941, who was the Lord President of the Federal Court of Malaysia between 1974 and 1982 and who died on 26th September 2000. In a Tribute published in October 2000, the Bar Council of Malaysia eulogised Tun Suffian as “Malaysia’s Greatest Judicial Figure”.

Tun Mohamed Salleh bin Abbas (call date -1955), who read Law at the University of Wales Aberystwyth, was Lord President of the Supreme Court of Malaysia between 1984 and 1988. Tun Salleh was Solicitor-General of Malaysia between 1966 and 1979, when he was appointed directly to the Federal Court presided over by Tun Suffian.

Finally, to echo the words of Dr. Deepak Chopra, it is a strange and meaningful coincidence that Tun Dzaiddin is the President of TMMTA’s Pro-Tem Committee and also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Tun Suffian Foundation. Tun Dzaiddin was first appointed to the High Court of Malaya, as a Judicial Commissioner in 1979, when Tun Suffian was Lord President.

Incidentally, Tan Sri Cecil was elected by the Parliament of Middle Temple as a Bencher on 12th October 2010, while Datuk Param Cumaraswamy (from Inner Temple, 1966) was in 2003 appointed as an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple.

If you are a Middle Templar in Malaysia, please do contact me for information and updates on TMMTA. Please register your interest in becoming a member of TMMTA. Watch this space for more news on TMMTA.

Pro-Tem Committee of TMMTA:

President: Tun Mohamed Dzaiddin bin Abdullah.

Deputy President: Tan Sri Cecil WM Abraham.

Secretary: Sathish Ramachandran.

Treasurer: Low Weng Tchung.

Committee Members: Mr. Justice Dr. Prasad Abraham JC; Honey Tan Lay Ean; Rodney Khor Say Aun.

Sathish Ramachandran was admitted of The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple on 27th August 1991, Called to the Degree of the Utter Bar on 29th July 1993 and published in the common Dining Hall of the said Society on the same day. He is an Advocate & Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya and has been a corporate lawyer in private practice in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia since July 1994. He can be contacted via e-mail at sathish@deolgill.com.

This article was written on 20th October 2010.