Law Society of Singapore v Ravi s/o Madasamy

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sundaresh Menon CJ
• Judgment Date: 27 October 2016
• Neutral Citation: [2016] SGHC 242
• Plaintiff Counsel: Sean Francois La'Brooy and Tan Wei Ser Venetia (Colin Ng & Partners LLP)
• Docket Number: Originating Summons No 265 of 2015 (Summons No 504 of 2016)
• Date: 27 October 2016
• Hearing Date: 06 September 2016
• Subject Matter: Legal Profession,Disciplinary Proceedings
• Year: 2016
• Defendant Counsel: Eugene Thuraisingam and Suang Wijaya (Eugene Thuraisingam LLP)
• Citation: [2016] SGHC 242
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Published date: 29 October 2016

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

This is an application made by the Law Society of Singapore (“the Law Society”) under s 82A(10) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed) (“the LPA”) against Mr Ravi s/o Madasamy (“the Respondent”), who is, and was at the material time, a non-practising solicitor.

As the Respondent is a non-practising solicitor, the Law Society was required under s 82A(4) of the LPA to first apply for leave for a Disciplinary Tribunal to be appointed to conduct an investigation into the complaints of misconduct that had been made against him. It did so by way of Originating Summons No 265 of 2015, and leave was granted pursuant to s 82A(6) of the LPA on 29 April 2015 (see Law Society of Singapore v Ravi s/o Madasamy [2015] 3 SLR 1187 (“Ravi (Leave Application)”)). A Disciplinary Tribunal was thereafter appointed and it heard the matter over two days in August 2015.

After hearing the parties, the Disciplinary Tribunal concluded that there was cause of sufficient gravity for disciplinary action to be taken against the Respondent (see The Law Society of Singapore v Ravi s/o Madasamy [2015] SGDT 5). Thereafter, Mr Sean Francois La’Brooy (“Mr La’Brooy”) was appointed to make an application under s 82A(10) of the LPA for the matter to be dealt with by this court. Mr La’Brooy filed the present summons on behalf of the Law Society, and the matter came before us for hearing on 6 September 2016.

There are potentially two issues before us: (a) whether due cause for disciplinary action against the Respondent has been shown; and (b) if so, what the appropriate sanction should be. The first issue can be disposed of readily. Throughout the course of the proceedings, the Respondent has not contested the charges against him. He also does not dispute that due cause is made out. Hence, the nub of the matter that we have to deal with concerns the sanction that should be imposed. On this, the Respondent contends that his mental state and condition at the material time is a significant mitigating factor, which the court must consider in deciding the appropriate sanction.

Having considered the parties’ submissions, and for the reasons we provide after setting out the background, we consider that despite the mitigating circumstances that are present in this case, it is necessary and appropriate to prohibit the Respondent from applying for a practising certificate for a period of two years, in order to safeguard the interests of the public and to uphold public confidence in the integrity of the legal profession.

The background facts and the charges

The events that led to the four charges that have been preferred against the Respondent occurred between 10 and 26 February 2015, which was the period immediately after he had been suspended from practice.

The Law Society’s direction to suspend the Respondent

On 10 February 2015, at about 12.15pm, the Council of the Law Society (“the Council”) issued a direction pursuant to s 25C(7) of the LPA that the Respondent was to stop practising until he had undergone a medical examination. This was on the basis that the Council had reason to believe that the Respondent’s fitness to practise was impaired by reason of his mental condition.

The subject of the first charge

Just over five hours after the Council issued that direction, at around 5.45pm, the Respondent appeared at the Law Society’s premises with three companions. His conduct thereafter constitutes the subject of the first charge. He made numerous inappropriate statements and acted in an unruly manner, which were all recorded on a video clip (“the Video”) that was later published on social media for public viewing. The Video carried the title “Persecution of Human Rights lawyer M Ravi by the Law Society of Singapore”. In the Video, he made the following (among other) statements: that the Law Society has “lost its independence” and should be called the “Lost Society of Singapore”; that the Prime Minister of Singapore had said that “he will fix the opposition” and was using the Law Society to “fix” the Respondent; that the Law Society had not spoken up for the Hindus “whose rights have been trampled”; and that the appointment of Mr Lee Hsien Loong as the Prime Minister was “unconstitutional” as he had been elected because he was Chinese, and the Respondent would be filing an application for relief in the High Court. The Respondent was also charged to have caused, encouraged, permitted and/or failed to prevent one of his companions from using abusive language against a member of the staff of the Law Society and from wrongfully restraining the said staff member from leaving the premises.

The first charge is that by such conduct, the Respondent had failed to act appropriately or with the measure of self-restraint and moderation expected of an advocate and solicitor and is therefore guilty of misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor within the meaning of s 82A(3)(a) of the LPA. The Law Society places particular emphasis on the racially sensitive nature of the two statements that are summarised at [8(c)] and [8(d)] above.

Shortly after this, the Respondent voluntarily admitted himself to Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where he remained until 14 February 2015. In response to a question we posed at the hearing, counsel for the Respondent, Mr Eugene Thuraisingam (“Mr Thuraisingam”), informed us that the Respondent had voluntarily gone to the hospital after his psychiatrist, Dr Munidasa Winslow (“Dr Winslow”), called him and advised him to do so.

The subject of the second charge

On the next day (11 February 2015) at 6.33pm, while the Respondent was still in the hospital, he sent an email to the news desk of The Straits Times and to a senior reporter, Mr K C Vijayan. The purpose of the email was to “… decr[y] the harsh and oppressive suspension of his Practi[s]ing Certificate” by the Law Society. The email also included an allegation that another advocate and solicitor, Mr Colin Craig Lowell Phan Siang Loong (“Mr Phan”), had been practising without a practising certificate. The Respondent also included in the email a copy of a facsimile from M/s Drew & Napier LLC (“Drew & Napier”), which was marked “without prejudice”, without first obtaining the consent of Drew & Napier, and a photograph which showed, in the words of the Respondent, “… the police being called to arrest [Mr Phan]”.

The email and the two attachments are the subject matter of the second charge, which states that in these premises, the Respondent had acted inappropriately and is therefore guilty of misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor under s 82A(3)(a) of the LPA.

The events leading to and constituting the third charge

The conduct that constitutes the third charge occurred a week later on 18 February 2015. But prior to that, the Council had written to the Respondent on 13 February 2015 in relation to the incident that had occurred on 10 February 2015 (see [8] above). The Council demanded in the letter that the Respondent apologise for his conduct (and that of his companions), undertake not to repeat the same, and take down the Video without disseminating it further. The Respondent did not respond to this letter until a little over a month later on 16 March 2015 (see [18] below).

On 17 February 2015, the Council applied to the High Court by way of Originating Summons No 161 of 2015 (“OS 161”) for an order requiring the Respondent to submit to a medical examination. This was to comply with the requirement under s 25C(8), read with s 25C(1), of the LPA, which requires the Council to apply to a judge for such an order within seven days of having issued a direction to suspend a solicitor’s practising certificate pursuant to s 25C(7) of the LPA.

The Law Society’s application in OS 161 was perhaps the catalyst for the Respondent’s conduct on the following day (18 February 2015) when he made certain remarks concerning Mr Thio Shen Yi, SC (“Mr Thio”), the President of the Law Society, and Mr Thio’s family members on what appeared to be the Respondent’s “Facebook” page. The relevant parts of the post read as follows:

Mr Ravi is bemused if not surprised that the President of the Law Society, Thio Shen Yi, head of the Council of the Law Society) had arrogated himself the knowledge of psychiatric medicine in suspending Mr Ravi from practice. Mr Ravi earnestly feels Mr Thio Shen Yi needs to go for psychiatric treatment and also it will be helpful if he could ask his sister, the infamous Ms Thio Li-Ann (supposedly leading authority on Constitutional Law and who is doggedly opposed to the decriminalization of homosexuality and internationally disgraced for her bigotry on human rights versus Charismatic Christianity). Mr M Ravi seriously hopes Mr Thio Shen Yi does not end up being disgraced by the members of the Bar by way of an [extraordinary general meeting], a similar situation which his mother Prof Thio Su Mein faced during the AWARE saga and it would seem that the Thio family has not carefully examined its own antecedents.

Thio Shen Yi needs a serious examination of his own head before he goes head to head with Mr Ravi. Mr Ravi will commence his slew of legal action against the Council members in the coming days and will be suing them jointly and severally.

The contents of that post is the subject-matter of the third charge against the Respondent, which asserts that by such inappropriate conduct, the Respondent is guilty of misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor. The subject of the fourth charge

The Council’s application made by way of OS 161 (see [14] above) was heard the following week on 24 and 26 February 2015. On 26 February 2015, the court ordered that the Respondent be suspended from practice until further order.

On the same day, the Respondent made allegations against Mr Pradeep Pillai (“Mr Pillai”), who had...