Lim Ghim Peow v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Andrew Phang Boon Leong JA
• Judgment Date: 19 October 2020
• Neutral Citation: [2020] SGCA 104
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Motion No 7 of 2020
• Year: 2020
• Published date: 23 October 2020
• Hearing Date: 19 October 2020
• Plaintiff Counsel: The applicant in person
• Defendant Counsel: Francis Ng Yong Kiat SC and Norine Tan Yan Ling (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Offences,Culpable homicide,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Appeal,Procedure
• Citation: [2020] SGCA 104

Andrew Phang Boon Leong JA (delivering the judgment of the court ex tempore):

The applicant, Mr Lim Ghim Peow (“the Applicant”), pleaded guilty to a single charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under s 304(a) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) for causing the death of his ex-lover, whom he had doused with petrol and set ablaze. The Applicant also admitted to the statement of facts (“the SOF”) without qualification. The High Court judge (“the Judge”) sentenced him to 20 years’ imprisonment (see Public Prosecutor v Lim Ghim Peow [2014] 2 SLR 522). We dismissed the Applicant’s appeal against sentence on 11 July 2014 (see Lim Ghim Peow v Public Prosecutor [2014] 4 SLR 1287 (“Lim Ghim Peow (CA)”).

By Criminal Motion No 7 of 2020, the Applicant seeks to have his case “reheard” on the basis that his sentence was excessive and that the Judge “made [mistakes] in his judgment”. We understand this to be an application under Division 1B of Part XX of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 2012 Rev Ed) (“the CPC”) for us to review our earlier decision in Lim Ghim Peow (CA).

Having carefully considered the parties’ written as well as oral submissions, it is clear to us that the application is wholly devoid of merit and is nothing but an attempt by the Applicant to mount a “back-door” appeal in violation of both the spirit and substance of the review process. We accordingly dismiss the application and provide our reasons for doing so.

Our decision Failure to apply for leave

At the outset, we note that the present application did not comply with the statutorily prescribed procedure for the bringing of review applications, and that it could have been dismissed on this ground alone. Under s 394H(1) of the CPC, an applicant must first obtain leave from the relevant appellate court before making a review application, which the Applicant failed to do prior to commencing this application. In Kreetharan s/o Kathireson v Public Prosecutor and other matters [2020] SGCA 91 (“Kreetharan”), we cautioned at [14]–[16] and [41] that applications which fail to adhere to the proper procedure are liable to being summarily dismissed without further hearing. While this was said in the context of a review application brought before the wrong court, the principle applies equally where a review application is brought without complying with the leave requirement, which we observed in Kreetharan at [17] appears to have been enacted in response to the concerns expressed by this court in Kho Jabing v Public Prosecutor [2016] 3 SLR 135 about the need to balance the rights and interests of all persons who utilise scarce judicial resources. The leave requirement does this by allowing unmeritorious applications to be weeded out at an early stage. The importance of adhering to the statutorily prescribed procedure cannot be gainsaid, and applicants in future cases of this kind...