Manjit Singh s/o Kirpal Singh v AG
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judgment Date | 15 March 2013 |
Date | 15 March 2013 |
Docket Number | Originating Summons No 107 of 2013 |
Court | High Court (Singapore) |
[2013] SGHC 62
Vinodh Coomaraswamy JC
Originating Summons No 107 of 2013
High Court
Administrative Law—Administrative powers—Nature of Chief Justice's power to revoke appointment of Disciplinary Tribunal under s 90 (3) (a)Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)—Section 90 (3) (a)Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)
Administrative Law—Disciplinary proceedings—Chief Justice's power to revoke appointment of Disciplinary Tribunal under s 90 (3) (a)Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)—Request by advocate and solicitor undergoing disciplinary proceedings for Chief Justice to revoke appointment of Disciplinary Tribunal on ground of withdrawal of complaint of professional misconduct which gave rise to disciplinary proceedings—Whether Chief Justice obliged to revoke when request was supported by some material and there was no contrary material supporting decision not to revoke—Whether Chief Justice under any procedural obligations when declining to revoke or declining even to make a decision as to whether or not to revoke—Section 90 (3) (a)Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)
Administrative Law—Judicial review—Irrationality—Chief Justice's power to revoke appointment of Disciplinary Tribunal under s 90 (3) (a) Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)—Chief Justice's refusal to revoke—Whether such refusal might be quashed for being irrational—Section 90 (3) (a) Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)
Administrative Law—Remedies—Mandamus—Request by advocate and solicitor undergoing disciplinary proceedings for Chief Justice to revoke appointment of Disciplinary Tribunal—Application for mandamus compelling Chief Justice to respond to request—Chief Justice responding after advocate and solicitor applied for mandamus—Whether Chief Justice's subsequent response rendered application for mandamus superfluous—Whether Chief Justice was obliged to respond to request within reasonable time or at all
Legal Profession—Disciplinary proceedings—Application by advocate and solicitor for High Court to stay proceedings before Disciplinary Tribunal pending appeal against High Court decision—Whether s 91 A Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed) precluded grant of stay—Section 91 A Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)
Legal Profession—Disciplinary proceedings—Disciplinary scheme under the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)—Chief Justice's power to revoke appointment of Disciplinary Tribunal under s 90 (3) (a) Legal Profession Act—Request by advocate and solicitor undergoing disciplinary proceedings for Chief Justice to revoke appointment of Disciplinary Tribunal on ground of withdrawal of complaint of professional misconduct which gave rise to disciplinary proceedings—Whether Chief Justice obliged to revoke when request was supported by material and there was no contrary material supporting decision not to revoke—Whether Chief Justice under any procedural obligations when declining to revoke or declining even to make decision as to whether or not to revoke—Section 90 (3) (a) Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed)
Legal Profession—Disciplinary proceedings—Withdrawal of complaint of professional misconduct against advocate and solicitor—Whether withdrawal of complaint brought disciplinary proceedings to automatic end
The applicants were two advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Singapore. A former client made a complaint of professional misconduct against them in December 2010. A Disciplinary Tribunal (‘the DT’) was appointed in February 2012 to hear and investigate the matter. On 23 November 2012, the complainant unreservedly withdrew the complaint. At a directions hearing before the DT on 3 January 2013, the Law Society of Singapore (‘the Law Society’) indicated that it intended to continue the disciplinary proceedings before the DT. On that footing, the DT proceeded to fix dates for the hearing of the matter before it.
Beginning 11 January 2013, the applicants wrote a number of letters to the Chief Justice in which they apprised him of the withdrawal of the complaint against them and asked that he exercise his power to revoke the appointment of the DT under s 90 (3) (a) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed) (‘the Act’). At 11.10am on 4 February 2013, before the Chief Justice replied, the applicants filed the present application, Originating Summons No 107 of 2013 (‘OS 107/2013’). By this application, the applicants sought leave under O 53 r 1 of the Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 2006 Rev Ed) to apply for inter alia: first, an order compelling the Chief Justice to exercise his power under s 90 (3) (a), ie,to respond one way or the other to their requests; and second, an order compelling the Chief Justice to revoke the appointment of the DT, ie, to respond to their requests in a particular way. At 4.15pm on the same day, 4 February 2013, the applicants received a letter from the DT Secretariat conveying the Chief Justice's view that the proceedings before the DT ‘should take their course’.
The DT commenced the disciplinary hearing on 13 February 2013. The applicants withdrew from that hearing and went before the duty judge of the High Court and obtained a stay of the DT proceedings pending the hearing of OS 107/2013 on 18 February 2013. Between 13 and 18 February 2013, the applicants wrote a number of further letters to the Chief Justice, again urging him to revoke the appointment of the DT. On 15 February 2013, the applicants received a letter from the DT Secretariat informing them that the Chief Justice was not revoking the appointment of the DT.
During the hearing of OS 107/2013 in chambers on 18 February 2013, two preliminary matters arose. First, the Law Society, a non-party to OS 107/2013, applied to attend the hearing on a watching brief. Second, the applicants applied for the judge hearing OS 107/2013 to recuse himself on grounds of apparentbias.
During the hearing, it was also pointed out that, although OS 107/2013 was filed on the basis that the Chief Justice had not responded to the applicants' letters, the Chief Justice had since responded, on 4 and 15 February 2013 through the DT Secretariat, by refusing to revoke the appointment of the DT. As a consequence, the applicants sought and were granted leave to amend OS 107/2013 to include an additional head of relief in the alternative, viz, an order quashing the Chief Justice's decision not to revoke the appointment of the DT.
A final matter arose following the dismissal of OS 107/2013, as the applicants sought a stay of the DT proceedings pending their appeal against the dismissal of OS 107/2013.
Held, dismissing the application:
(1) On the first preliminary matter, even though a non-party had no entitlement to attend a hearing in chambers, the court had an inherent discretion to allow a non-party who could establish sufficient interest in the proceedings to attend. Nothing in O 53 of the Rules of Court excluded that discretion in the context of an application under O 53 r 1. Further, the applicants could not show that the attendance of the Law Society would cause them any prejudice. The Law Society, having sufficient interest in OS 107/2013, was therefore allowed to attend the hearing of that application: at [14] and [16] to [18] .
(2) On the second preliminary matter, the judge declined to recuse himself from hearing OS 107/2013, because there were no circumstances which would give rise to a reasonable suspicion or apprehension in a fair-minded reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts that the judge was biased against the applicants: at [33] , [42] , [45] , [48] and [50] .
(3) A court would grant leave to apply for judicial review only if three conditions were satisfied: first, that the matter complained of was susceptible to judicial review; second, that the applicant had sufficient interest in the matter; and third, that the material before the court disclosed an arguable case or a prima facie case of reasonable suspicion in favour of granting the public law remedies sought by the applicant: at [83] .
(4) In relation to the first condition for grant of leave, one of the tests - and usually the decisive test - for whether a matter was susceptible to judicial review was whether the source of the relevant power was public law. In this case, the source of the Chief Justice's power was statute, viz, s 90 (3) (a)of the Act. Accordingly, his exercise or non-exercise of that power was a matter susceptible to judicial review. The restriction on judicial review contained in s 91 A of the Act was only in respect of acts done and decisions made by a DT, and could not be read, even purposively, to exclude directly judicial review of the Chief Justice's decisions under s 90 (3) (a): at [84] and [88] .
(5) In relation to the second condition for grant of leave, the applicants had sufficient interest in the matter because they were the subject of the disciplinary proceedings in question and their professional reputations and status were at stake: at [89] .
(6) When a complaint of professional misconduct against an advocate and solicitor gave rise to disciplinary proceedings, a subsequent withdrawal of that complaint did not bring those disciplinary proceedings to an automatic end: at [100] .
(7) The Chief Justice's power to revoke the appointment of a DT under s 90 (3) (a)of the Act did not impose on him an obligation to revoke a DT just because: (a)a person placed before him some material said to support a request to revoke - for instance, the fact that the complaint which gave rise to the disciplinary proceedings had been withdrawn; and (b)there was no material supporting the contrary decision not to revoke: at [106] .
(8) The language of s 90 (3) (a) of the Act did not prevent a person from asking the Chief Justice to exercise his power under that...
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