Lim Keng Chia v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Yong Pung How CJ
• Judgment Date: 02 January 1998
• Neutral Citation: [1998] SGHC 1
• Citation: [1998] SGHC 1
• Date: 02 January 1998
• Year: 1998
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Criminal Law,Whether detention under s 37(2) is a bar to a subsequent conviction based on the same set of facts that led to detention,Statutory offences,Protection against repeated trial,Whether a DRC detainee can be prosecuted for a criminal offence based on the same facts that led to the detention,s 37(2) Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185),Powers,Attorney-general,Whether the conviction of a DRC detainee for an offence arising from the same facts that led to the detention is autrefois convict,Whether Attorney-General had the power to prosecute a DRC detainee for a criminal offence based on the same facts that led to the detention,Revision of proceedings,Constitution of the Republic of Singapore Art 11(2),Fundamental liberties,Constitutional Law
• Docket Number: Criminal Revision No 20 of 1997
• Defendant Counsel: Lim Jit Hee (Deputy Public Prosecutor),S Sankar (Sankar & Co)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 19 September 2003

Judgment:

YONG PUNG HOW CJ

This petition for revision was brought in respect of the petitioner`s conviction in the district court on the following charge:

You, Lim Keng Chia m/39 Yrs (NRIC S 1274448-Z) are charged that you, on or about 29 January 1996, at Singapore, did consume a controlled drug specified in Class `A` of the First Schedule of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185), to wit, morphine without authorisation under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder and you have thereby committed an offence under s 8(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185).

And further that you before commission of the said act, that is to say that you on 25 September 1967, at Court No 26 of the subordinate court, Havelock Square, Singapore, vide MAC 8480/78, had been convicted for an offence under s 6(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, which conviction had not been set aside, and you are liable to punishment under s 33 of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185).

2.Having heard the submissions of the petitioner`s counsel, I concluded that the petition was without merit and I dismissed it accordingly. I now set forth my reasons for doing so.

3. The facts of the case

Briefly, the events leading to the petitioner being charged in the district court were as follows. On 29 January 1996 the petitioner was apprehended by officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) at the NTUC Fair Price Supermarket in Bedok. The following day, he was placed in Kaki Bukit Drug Rehabilitation Centre (DRC) pursuant to an order made by the Director of the CNB in exercise of his powers under s 37(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185). He remained in detention at Kaki Bukit DRC for over a year. He was eventually discharged on 28 February 1997.

4.On 2 March 1997, the petitioner was brought before Court 26 of the subordinate courts on a charge of unauthorised consumption of a controlled drug under s 8(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act. I have already set out above the terms of this charge. It may be noted that the instance of drug consumption alleged in the charge was apparently the same incident which formed the catalyst for the petitioner`s apprehension and subsequent detention in the DRC in January 1996. Before the district judge, the petitioner`s counsel submitted that the charge was bad in law. The submission was rejected and on 19 September 1997, the petitioner elected to plead guilty. He was convicted on his plea of guilt and sentenced to three years` imprisonment.

5. The grounds for the petition

autrefois convict acquit At the hearing before me, the petitioner`s counsel reprised the same arguments canvassed before the district judge. These were: (a). that the petitioner`s conviction on 19 September 1997 violated the doctrine of and enshrined in our Constitution;

(b). that the Attorney General`s decision to prosecute the petitioner constituted an `abuse of the court process`; and

(c). that Parliament could not have intended `that a person who has been sent to DRC is to be subsequently charged for the same fact that caused him to be sent to the DRC, unless he is apprehended on a fresh count of consumption of drug`.

6. Whether the petitioner`s conviction on 19 September 1997 violated the principle of autrefois convict and acquit

In respect of the argument summarised at (a) above, counsel contended that the detention order made by the Director of the CNB on 30 January 1996 amounted to a conviction; and that the conviction sustained by the petitioner on 19 September 1997 amounted to a second conviction in respect of the same offence. In counsel`s submission, this was a clear violation of art 11(2) of the Constitution, which article endorses the doctrine of autrefois convict and acquit in the following terms:

A person who has been convicted or acquitted of an offence shall not be tried again for the same offence except where the conviction or acquittal has been quashed and a retrial ordered by a court superior to that by which he was convicted or acquitted.

7.The above argument depended on the proposition that a detention order under s 37(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act amounted to a conviction. I asked counsel if he knew of any authorities which supported such a proposition. He said he did not. He referred me, however, to the case of Harry Lee Wee v Law Society of Singapore [1985] 1 MLJ 1 [1984-1985] SLR 41 , which he said involved an analogous situation.

8.Regrettably, having read the judgment delivered in that case, I could not see that it bore any relevance to the petition before me. In Harry Lee Wee `s case, the Privy Council was asked to determine whether the two successive sets of disciplinary proceedings brought against the appellant were based on the same instance of misconduct; and if so, whether the second set of such proceedings amounted to a violation of the doctrine of autrefois convict and acquit or at the very least, an abuse of the disciplinary process provided for in the Legal Profession Act (Cap 217). The Privy Council answered these questions in the affirmative. It must be pointed out, however, that the Privy Council in Harry Lee Wee `s case was faced with two sets of the same sort of proceedings. I did not see, therefore, how the court`s reasoning in Harry Lee Wee illuminated in any way counsel`s efforts at persuading me, in this case, that a detention order made by the Director of the CNB amounted to the same sort of process as a conviction sustained in a court of law. Counsel`s proposition required from me a leap of reasoning for which no support could be found in Harry Lee Wee `s case.

9.In fact, the cases to which I have had regard indicate a state of affairs which is in complete opposition to that argued for by counsel.

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