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...or
maybe you will
22 May 07
In
the lawsuit that Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his prime minister son, Mr
Lee Hsien Loong, took against the SDP and its leaders, the Lees
had applied for summary judgement, or Order 14 in legal parlance,
for the case to be awarded to them without it going to trial.
The lawsuit was over an article the SDP had published in
The New Democrat, the
SDP's flagship publication, describing how the NKF scandal
was bred in a system built by the PAP where transparency and
accountability were alien features.
During the Order 14
hearing in September last year defence counsel, Mr M Ravi, had
taken ill and could not come to court.
The Lees' lawyer,
Mr Davinder Singh, then accused Mr Ravi and the defendants of
being "devious" and that the lawyer's absence was
"nothing more than another
attempt to delay the Order 14 applications."
A
medical certificate later proved that Mr Ravi was unfit to attend
court.
During
the hearing, Dr Chee Soon Juan had asked Judge Ang for a one- or
two-week adjournment for Mr Ravi to recover or, if the the Judge
refused, for time to look for another lawyer.
On
both counts, Ms Ang refused, siding with Mr Singh. She ordered
the summary judgment hearing to proceed with the defendants being
unrepresented.
And
so Judge Ang and Mr Singh sat cloistered in her chambers where
she heard only the plaintiffs' arguments and proceeded to award
the case to the Lees.
Subsequently the Court's Minute
Sheet recorded what transpired between Ms Ang and Mr Singh. At
one point, the Judge remarked that Dr Chee was "hedging his
bets" to which Mr Singh responding, "Absolutely!"
On
reading this, Dr Chee took out a Summons application to ask the
Court for an extension of time to appeal Judge Ang's decision as
her actions and remarks were highly prejudicial to the defence's
case.
Things then got rather interesting. The Courts set
the hearing for Dr Chee's application for yesterday, 21 May 07.
When Dr Chee arrived Mr Davinder Singh was already present.
And
who was the judge? BINGO! Ms Belinda Ang!
"It
is utterly amazing that you are presiding over this application
which is about you," Dr Chee pointed out the obvious.
As
it turned out Judge Ang referred the matter to the Court of
Appeal.
The burning question is why
was another judge not assigned to hear the application? Isn't it
amazing that out of 12 High Court Judges, Ms Ang was
assigned to preside over a matter in which she was the very
subject of the controversy?
Hasn't
the Singapore Courts heard of the saying that "Justice must
not only be done, but manifestly seen to be done"?
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