Iskandar bin Rahmat and others v Attorney-General and another
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | Sundaresh Menon CJ |
Judgment Date | 04 August 2022 |
Neutral Citation | [2022] SGCA 58 |
Court | Court of Appeal (Singapore) |
Docket Number | Civil Appeal No 31 of 2022 |
Published date | 11 August 2022 |
Year | 2022 |
Hearing Date | 04 August 2022 |
Plaintiff Counsel | The appellants in person |
Defendant Counsel | John Lu Zhuoren, Chin Jincheng, Ting Yue Xin Victoria (Attorney-General's Chambers) |
Citation | [2022] SGCA 58 |
There are two matters before us today. The first is CA/CA 31/2022 (“CA 31”), which is an appeal against the decision of the High Court Judge (“the Judge”) in HC/SUM 2858/2022 (“SUM 2858”) that was rendered yesterday striking out HC/OC 166/2022 (“OC 166”) in its entirety. OC 166 in turn was a claim brought by 24 convicted prisoners (collectively “the appellants”) seeking:
The second matter that is before us today is an oral application made by the 2nd Appellant in CA 31, Abdul Rahim bin Shapiee (“Abdul Rahim”), seeking a stay of execution in respect of a Warrant to carry out the death sentence that was imposed on him some time ago. That sentence is scheduled to be carried out tomorrow. The stay application is grounded on an action that the 2nd appellant filed, namely HC/OC 173/2022 (“OC 173”), on 3 August 2022 against his counsel at trial, ostensibly for breach of his duty and for failing to follow instructions.
At the start of the proceedings before us, the appellants, who were in person, made an oral application for permission to be assisted by a McKenzie friend. Specifically, we were informed that the appellants wished to have Mr M Ravi (“Mr Ravi”), an advocate and solicitor, who currently does not hold a Practising Certificate (“PC”) act as their McKenzie friend. Mr Ravi did hold a conditional PC, but this expired at the end of March this year. This was not renewed and indeed Mr Ravi had undertaken that he would not apply for a PC prior to the end of March 2023. We first dispose of this briefly.
We asked the appellants what the purpose of the proposed McKenzie friend was and were told it was to enable them to get legal advice. We declined the request. A McKenzie friend has no right at all with respect to pending litigation. Any attempt to invoke the assistance of a McKenzie friend is at the initiative of the litigant and subject to the permission of the court. The court will usually be sympathetic to such a request where it considers that the litigant reasonably requires assistance appropriate to that which may be provided by a McKenzie friend. A McKenzie friend may not act as an advocate for a litigant, and is best seen as a support to aid the litigant in the way of helping with documents or with taking notes or with guiding a litigant through the process.
In
[emphasis added in bold italics]
It was clear to us that this was not a case where the appellants needed the assistance of a McKenzie friend. The appellants had advanced their arguments before the Judge yesterday and directions had been given for those to stand as submissions before us. It was evident from those submissions that they either had already been assisted in developing their legal points or they did not require such assistance. Further this was not a case where there were voluminous documents such that they needed help to be assisted with these.
In any case, we were not minded to permit Mr Ravi to take on such a role. First, we were mindful of his previous conduct where he had appeared in a matter when he did not have a valid PC, ostensibly to provide “technical support”. In
Aside from this, we had regard to the fact that Mr Ravi had subsequently decided not to renew his PC and had undertaken not to apply for a PC until next year. In those circumstances, we did not think it would have been appropriate for him to be giving legal advice to these appellants. We were concerned that Mr Ravi should not use this as a way to do through the back door that which he is not lawfully permitted to do.
With that we turn to the matters before us.
BackgroundThe 2nd appellant, Abdul Rahim, and a co-accused person, Ong Seow Ping (“Ong”), are scheduled to be executed on Friday, 5 August 2022 pursuant to the death sentence that was imposed on each of them. Ong is not party to these proceedings.
Conviction and appeal They were convicted on 15 March 2018 in a joint trial (“the Joint Trial”). They faced separate charges of possessing a Class A controlled drug for the purpose of trafficking under s 5(1)(
On 5 March 2020, Abdul Rahim’s and Ong’s appeals (“the Appeals”) against conviction and sentence were dismissed. At the appeal Abdul Rahim was represented by a different counsel, Dhillon Surinder Singh (“Mr Singh”) who was assisted by one of the assisting counsel, Luo Ling Ling, who had also been part of the team representing him at trial.
Abdul Rahim was also involved in two other sets of proceedings before the present set of proceedings. In HC/OS 825/2021 and HC/OS 1025/2021 (see for instance
The Warrants of Execution for Abdul Rahim and Ong were issued to the Commissioner of Prisons on 19 July 2022, stating that they were to be executed on 5 August 2022. Abdul Rahim received his Notice of Execution on Friday, 29 July 2022.3 The appellants contend that they had intended to file OC 166 on Thursday 28 July 2022, but that the Registry officer at the prison had erroneously4 rejected their filing and that they were only eventually able to do so on Monday 1 August 2022.5
We have already noted that the principal relief sought in OC 166 was a declaration that the CPC Cost Provisions are invalid for inconsistency with the Constitution. For convenience we set these out as follows:
Costs ordered by Court of Appeal or General Division of High Court
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