December 4, 2009 by admin
Filed under
Headlines
Leave a comment
Written by Our Correspondent
American citizen and former Singaporean Mr Gopalan Nair had
revealed the circumstances surrounding the conviction of the late
opposition leader J.B. Jeyaretnam in 1985 on his blog – the
“Singapore Dissident” as part of his defence against the
disciplinary proceedings commenced against him by the Singapore Law
Society.
The Singapore Law Society had submitted an application to the
Chief Justice accusing Mr Gopalan of bringing “the profession as a
whole into disrepute and lowered its esteem in the eyes of the
general public” (read article: here)
A two-man disciplinary tribunal has been formed to determine if
he is guilty of misconduct “unbefitting” of a lawyer in March
next year.
Though Mr Gopalan claimed earlier that he does not care “one way
on another what Singapore does” as any action taken against him in
Singapore will have no effect on him, he still wrote a spirited
defence of himself on his blog.
He also shed light on a case involving Mr Jeyaretnam who was
convicted for fraud in 1985 which got him suspended for two years
from his law practice.
After he was sued for defamation by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan
Yew and was ordered to pay several hundreds of thousands of dollars
in damages, Mr Jeyaretnam put out a plea to the general public for
donations.
He opened a Standard Chartered Account to collect these monies
and Mr Gopalan, a member of the Workers’ Party under Mr Jeyaretnam,
was appointed the Trustee to receive these funds.
A total of $14,000 or $15,000.00 was received into this
account.
Among the donors, there were a couple of people who wanted to
donate and had made out checks to the Workers Party, but Mr
Jeyaretnam had asked them to make out the check to him instead,
since if the check was made out to the party, it would not benefit
him since the party had already been would up by the courts.
According to Mr Gopalan’s account, Mr Jeyaretnam was charged
with criminal breach of trust for having diverted “funds belonging
to the court liquidator to himself” and sentenced to one month in
prison which caused him to lose his parliamentary seat and
disbarred from the Singapore Bar.
Mr Jeyaretnam subsequently appealed his disbarment to the Privy
Council in London which duly reversed the judgment, noting:
“Their Lordships have to record their deep disquiet that by
a series of misjudgements, the appellant and his co-accused Wong,
have suffered a grievous injustice.
They have been fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for
offences of which they are not guilty. The appellant, in addition,
has been deprived of his seat in Parliament and disqualified for a
year from practising his profession.
Their Lordships order restores him to the roll of advocates
and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Singapore, but, because of
the course taken by the criminal proceedings, their Lordships have
no power to right the other wrongs which the appellant and Wong
have suffered. Their only prospect of redress, their Lordships
understand, will be by way of petition for pardon to the President
of the Republic of Singapore.”
[Source:
Wikipedia]
(Note: The right of appeal to the Privy Council was abolished by
a change in the law the following year.)
Before the English court commenced the proceedings, it sent an
invitation to the Attorney-General of Singapore Mr Tan Boon Teck to
attend the session who declined to do so.
After Mr Jeyaretnam returned to Singapore , he applied for a
“pardon” from the President of Singapore which was denied on the
grounds that “the Attorney General of Singapore) was not given an
opportunity to be heard before the English Court ” and secondly “JB
Jeyaretnam had not shown remorse repentance and contrition for the
crimes he had committed”
Mr Gopalan wrote to the Attorney-General asking why he claimed
he was not given an opportunity to appear in the English court when
he clearly was who replied by calling Mr Gopalan’s letter
“scurrilous”.
Mr Gopalan wrote to Mr Tan again threatening to circulate the
correspondence between them to all the law firms in Singapore if he
still refuse to answer his questions which led to Mr Tan making a
report against him to the Law Society.
The charges against Mr Gopalan were that he had “threatened the
Attorney General” and that he had made “false accusations against
the Attorney General”. He was disciplined and suspended from
practice for two years.
Mr Gopalan Nair is a staunch critic of the Singapore government,
especially its judiciary. He was sentenced to imprisonment in
Singapore for 3 months last year for allegedly insulting a
Singapore judge.
Before he was released, he promised the court that he would not
repeat the allegations again which he immediately retracted upon
leaving Singapore.
ps. I don't care much for the guy... but I don't
think Gopalan Nair did any wrong in pointing out that
then Attorney-General of Singapore, Mr Tan Boon Teck was invited to
attend the Privy Council session, declined the
invitation, and later claimed he was not given an opportunity to be
heard before the English Court. Read the article in its
entirety and it will shed some light on how the MIWs
operate in Singapore.