Lawyers in Singapore must collectively “recover” their rights to carry out their duties without fear and intimidation from any entities, said human rights counsel Ravi Madasamy.
Mr Ravi, widely known as M Ravi, said that this is particularly important in a climate where the country’s Law Society “has its limitations”.
“But we can pass a motion at an EOGM (extraordinary general meeting) where we can begin to recover our rights by starting somewhere,” he said in a Facebook post on Wednesday (1 Sep).
“It is a shame that we are not doing anything about our own rights when we proclaim to fight for others’ rights,” said Mr Ravi.
Mr Ravi made his remarks following the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) move to threaten Mr Eugene Thuraisingam, the counsel of an acquitted anaesthetist, with disciplinary action for alleged abuse of the court’s process.
Dr Yeo Sow Nam, 52, was acquitted on 16 Aug on the four charges of molestation that were brought against him by the AGC nearly four years ago after the prosecution decided to earlier file an application to withdraw the charges against Dr Yeo.
District Judge Ng Peng Hong granted the prosecution’s application for a discharge amounting to an acquittal (DATA).
Other than Mr Thuraisingam, two other lawyers from his firm Eugene Thuraisingam LLP (ET LLP) represented Dr Yeo in the case.
The firm took over the case from Dr Yeo’s previous lawyers after he had spent more than S$600,000 on legal fees.
Mr Thuraisingam, who has been a lawyer in practice since 2001, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the AGC has threatened him with disciplinary action, stating that he had supposedly “abused the court’s process by taking the court through the complainant’s lies but yet withdrew Dr Yeo’s application to lift the gag order on the complainant’s identity”.
Citing some basic guarantees outlined by the United Nations for lawyers under the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, Mr Ravi said that governments should ensure that lawyers are “able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference”.
Lawyers should also be free “to travel and to consult with their clients freely both within their own country and abroad”, he added.
Mr Ravi also said that lawyers should not be subjected to “prosecution or administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognised professional duties, standards and ethics”.
Referencing his own predicament in relation to his clients, Malaysian death row inmates Gobi Avedian and Datchinamurthy Kataiah, Mr Ravi noted that the Court of Appeal of Singapore had ruled that the AGC’s remarks on reserving their rights against him on behalf of the Government “could be reasonably construed as intimidating”.
“The AGC in fact filed a complaint against me after I managed to set aside Gobi’s death sentence when the Court of Appeal found that there was miscarriage of justice,” he added.
The AGC on 23 Oct last year filed a complaint to the Law Society against Mr Ravi for his comments on Mr Gobi’s death row case, following the Court of Appeal’s decision to set aside the Malaysian inmate’s capital sentence.
Deputy Attorney-General Hri Kumar Nair wrote to Mr Ravi stating that the AGC has referred the matter to the Law Society after Mr Ravi rejected their demand for a written apology and a retraction of his “false and misleading allegations” against the Public Prosecutor in Mr Gobi’s case.
Mr Hri also noted that the AGC denies the assertions made by Mr Ravi in his letter reply dated 22 October.
The AGC will also not comply with Mr Ravi’s demand for a public apology from the prosecution on behalf of Mr Gobi and his family, as well as any other demand put forth by the lawyer in relation to the matter.
This is because the Chief Justice has no discretion in deciding whether to convene a disciplinary tribunal in such cases — rather, he is mandated by Parliament to do so, he elaborated.
On the contrary, the Chief Justice has discretion on whether to allow a complaint against the A-G or public prosecutors to be investigated by a disciplinary tribunal, such as in Ms Parti’s case.
“When a complaint is made against a lawyer, the A-G enjoys special status where the CJ has no power to say no,” said Mr Ravi.
Lawyers who are interested in the proposed motion at an EOGM can contact Mr Ravi at his email, [email protected]
