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.
Unfortunately if you are familiar with Gopalan Nair's other writings, you will see that he has said a few words abusing several races in Singapore in a rude racist way.
The last part of the post 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" - was never made known to Singaporeans, and certainly is news even if it is 24 years after the fact.
Even after independence since 9 August 1965, LKY had then held the Privy Council to be - "the acme of Singapore's judicial independence, when he cautioned future PAP governments against interfering with its status in the judicial infrastructure [*1]:-
"I can only express the hope that faith in the judicial system will never be diminished, and I am sure it will not, so long as we allow a review of the judicial processes that takes place here in some other tribunal where obviously undue influence cannot be brought to bear. As long as governments are wise enough to leave alone the rights of appeal to some superior body outside Singapore, then there must be a higher degree of confidence in the integrity of our judicial process. This is most important." Lee Kuan Yew in parliament, March 15, 1967. " [Note *2]
Even the Law Minister S. Jayakumar - when rebutting JBJ in Parliament - had also said to JBJ - "How many countries are there in the world that he can refer to where there are appeals to the privy council in criminal and civil cases ... other than Singapore? That is the litmus test of our judicial system's independence."
This practise of retaining the Privy Council as the final arbiter of Singapore Justice had continued without any incidences until 1988 - when the ‘Privy Council ruled on Jeyaratnam vs The Singapore Law Society’ (*3) - to absolve JBJ of any wrong doing, and allowed his appeal while also admonishing the Singapore Judiciary for a serious miscarriage of justice.
Almost immediately, the Law Minister S. Jayakumar moved in Parliament for the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council - 'now decrying it as being "interventionist" and "out of touch" with local conditions' - [which is pathetic, considering his memory failure to what he had so proudly proclaimed in Parliament not so long ago].
This shocked response to the published findings of the Privy Council contrast to the cool confidence of LKY that his Singapore Judicial System was above board - and he will apply for a Presidential Pardon if JBJ succeed in his appeal to the Privy Council.
Obviously, the Presidential Pardon was never made good, even as the legislations were hurriedly passed to make the Privy Council an irrelevant feature in Singapore's Judiciary system - never mind about the image of judicial standards or independence.
This entire episode that stained Singapore's Judiciary, and need not have happened if LKY had accepted the previous findings of the District Judge Michael Khoo, who had already absolved JBJ of any charges - as was later confirmed by the Privy Council in 1988 except that it was LKY's personal fixation in having JBJ fixed.
New information was finally revealed when ‘the late President Devan Nair recalled a meeting with LKY at the Istana’ (*4) - following JBJ's success at the 1987 Anson by-elections:
[Quote]
Kuan Yew's attention was concentrated on how he would deal with J.B Jeyaretnam in parliament. I was quite alarmed at some of the things he told me at that lunch.
"Look," he said, "Jeyaretnam cant win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time."
And I will never forget his last words. "I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy."
[Unquote]
Note 2 : See PDF Page 3 of 12 in - ‘The Politics of Judicial Institutions in Singapore’ – by Francis Seow (former Solicitor General of Singapore (*2)
Originally posted by Veggie Bao:Unfortunately if you are familiar with Gopalan Nair's other writings, you will see that he has said a few words abusing several races in Singapore in a rude racist way.
Unfortunately, Gopalan was returning the same compliments offered by several races in Singapore.
Does this affect the truth of the events that have been as accurately documented ?
Focus on the message, and not on the messenger.
Originally posted by Atobe:
The last part of the post 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" - was never made known to Singaporeans, and certainly is news even if it is 24 years after the fact.
Even after independence since 9 August 1965, LKY had then held the Privy Council to be - "the acme of Singapore's judicial independence, when he cautioned future PAP governments against interfering with its status in the judicial infrastructure [*1]:-
"I can only express the hope that faith in the judicial system will never be diminished, and I am sure it will not, so long as we allow a review of the judicial processes that takes place here in some other tribunal where obviously undue influence cannot be brought to bear. As long as governments are wise enough to leave alone the rights of appeal to some superior body outside Singapore, then there must be a higher degree of confidence in the integrity of our judicial process. This is most important." Lee Kuan Yew in parliament, March 15, 1967. " [Note *2]
Even the Law Minister S. Jayakumar - when rebutting JBJ in Parliament - had also said to JBJ - "How many countries are there in the world that he can refer to where there are appeals to the privy council in criminal and civil cases ... other than Singapore? That is the litmus test of our judicial system's independence."
This practise of retaining the Privy Council as the final arbiter of Singapore Justice had continued without any incidences until 1988 - when the ‘Privy Council ruled on Jeyaratnam vs The Singapore Law Society’ (*3) - to absolve JBJ of any wrong doing, and allowed his appeal while also admonishing the Singapore Judiciary for a serious miscarriage of justice.
Almost immediately, the Law Minister S. Jayakumar moved in Parliament for the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council - 'now decrying it as being "interventionist" and "out of touch" with local conditions' - [which is pathetic, considering his memory failure to what he had so proudly proclaimed in Parliament not so long ago].
This shocked response to the published findings of the Privy Council contrast to the cool confidence of LKY that his Singapore Judicial System was above board - and he will apply for a Presidential Pardon if JBJ succeed in his appeal to the Privy Council.
Obviously, the Presidential Pardon was never made good, even as the legislations were hurriedly passed to make the Privy Council an irrelevant feature in Singapore's Judiciary system - never mind about the image of judicial standards or independence.
This entire episode that stained Singapore's Judiciary, and need not have happened if LKY had accepted the previous findings of the District Judge Michael Khoo, who had already absolved JBJ of any charges - as was later confirmed by the Privy Council in 1988 except that it was LKY's personal fixation in having JBJ fixed.
New information was finally revealed when ‘the late President Devan Nair recalled a meeting with LKY at the Istana’ (*4) - following JBJ's success at the 1987 Anson by-elections:
[Quote]
Kuan Yew's attention was concentrated on how he would deal with J.B Jeyaretnam in parliament. I was quite alarmed at some of the things he told me at that lunch.
"Look," he said, "Jeyaretnam cant win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time."
And I will never forget his last words. "I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy."
[Unquote]
Note 2 : See PDF Page 3 of 12 in - ‘The Politics of Judicial Institutions in Singapore’ – by Francis Seow (former Solicitor General of Singapore (*2)
Atobe
Just a short clarification.
The postscript was added in by me, to sum up what the writer of the article exposed about the then Attorney General of Singapore Tan Boon Teck, and how the MIW operate in Singapore.
On the other points you made, they are, in my opinion, spot-on.
Originally posted by Atobe:
Unfortunately, Gopalan was returning the same compliments offered by several races in Singapore.
Eh.....is there a record of these compliments?
Unfortunately if you are familiar with Gopalan Nair's other writings, you will see that he has said a few words abusing several races in Singapore in a rude racist way.
pp
yes . u are correct.
I hate to stir up any racial conflict. But to support the above sentence,
i search Tamil in Nair blog.
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/search?q=Tamil
u search other races then u will know his assessments!!
His (lion note--26.10.2009 blog--refer to Minister for Law, K Shanmugam)
abilities are no better than any other struggling Tamil lawyer in the cheap cubicles of People Park Center across from the Subordiante Court.
go to read more before u guys talk about Nair.
http://www.sgforums.com/topics/search?q=Nair&commit=Go&type=topics
pp
Whatever, he is history to us already, let move on...
Originally posted by Stevenson101:
Eh.....is there a record of these compliments?
There is no smoke without fire - try searching with more patience.
Originally posted by angel7030:Whatever, he is history to us already, let move on...
What does a Taiwanese 'hum' know about history - especially Singapore History - when it is already muddled with its own Taiwanese history ?
Why will a Taiwanese 'hum' wish to move on in such a hurry - or is the truth to real to be continued to be spoken, which the Taiwanese 'hum' cannot cover with the wagging of its clitoris taking over where its tongue has failed ?
Originally posted by Atobe:
There is no smoke without fire - try searching with more patience.
Yes but a lot of smoke can also be created by a small fire.
It's a little hard for me to search based your description and it seems Goplan Nair's choices of words were never friendly to begun with.
You made the claim that it was a response in kind, i'm just asking on where to start.
We dun need a person in some country influencing our system here, even if someone wanted to argue with the govt, at least, he should be here and be true singaporeans, i would had supported him if not, applauded him.