Hamzah bin Ibrahim v Public Prosecutor and another appeal

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sundaresh Menon CJ
• Judgment Date: 02 August 2018
• Neutral Citation: [2018] SGCA 45
• Plaintiff Counsel: N Kanagavijayan (Kana & Co) and A Revi Shanker (ARShanker Law Chambers),Amarick Gill (Amarick Gill LLC), Sankar Saminathan (Sterling Law Corporation) and Debby Lim (Shook Lin & Bok LLP)
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeals Nos 26 and 29 of 2017
• Date: 02 August 2018
• Hearing Date: 02 August 2018
• Subject Matter: Criminal procedure and sentencing,Appeal,Application for adjournment
• Published date: 15 August 2018
• Defendant Counsel: Wong Woon Kwong and Shen Wanqin (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Citation: [2018] SGCA 45
• Year: 2018

Sundaresh Menon CJ (delivering the judgment of the court ex tempore): Introduction

Hamzah bin Ibrahim and Tika Pesik, the appellants in Criminal Appeals Nos 26 and 29 of 2017 respectively, were convicted by the High Court of trafficking in 26.29g of diamorphine under s 5(1)(a) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) after a joint trial. Both appellants were sentenced to death (see Public Prosecutor v Muhammad Farid bin Sudi and others [2017] SGHC 228). Tika Pesik (hereafter “the second appellant”) appeals against both her conviction and sentence, while Hamzah bin Ibrahim appeals against his sentence only. Both appeals were fixed for hearing on the morning of 2 August 2018.

Mr Amarick Gill (“Mr Gill”), who represents the second appellant, wrote to the court on 31 July 2018 requesting an adjournment for a period of between six and eight weeks so that he might engage the services of a Malay language interpreter to interpret the parties’ submissions and court documents to his client. Given that the appeal was only two days away, we directed that he should make any application for an adjournment at the hearing of the appeal itself.

At the hearing this morning, Mr Gill made an oral application to adjourn Criminal Appeal No 29 of 2017. He explained that last Thursday, 26 July 2018, he received a call at his office from the prison authorities, informing him that his client did not understand the submissions which had been prepared on her behalf for the appeal. Mr Gill’s assisting counsel, Mr Sankar Saminathan (“Mr Sankar”), visited the second appellant in prison and she reiterated that she did not understand the submissions. Unfortunately, Mr Sankar does not speak Malay and was unable to interpret them to her. On 30 July 2018, Mr Gill and Mr Sankar visited the second appellant together. When asked if she understood the Record of Proceedings, she hesitantly replied in the affirmative. She also said she “roughly understood” her submissions as well as those filed by the respondent. Mr Gill and Mr Sankar felt that this did not suffice. They therefore told the second appellant that they would discharge themselves as it would benefit her to be represented by counsel who were more fluent in Malay. Mr Gill and Mr Sankar eventually decided against discharging themselves, but instead sought an adjournment to gain some time to engage a Malay interpreter to interpret the parties’ submissions and the Record of Proceedings to the second appellant. Mr Gill also mentioned in his oral submissions to us that his assisting counsel had identified a particular issue, the nature of which was not disclosed to us, from perusing the Record of Proceedings about two weeks ago and this had completely escaped the second appellant. Though further inquiries into that issue had not led...