Manjit Singh s/o Kirpal Singh and another v Attorney-General

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chao Hick Tin JA
• Judgment Date: 19 August 2013
• Neutral Citation: [2013] SGCA 45
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Civil Appeal No 28 of 2013
• Year: 2013
• Published date: 27 August 2013
• Hearing Date: 12 August 2013
• Plaintiff Counsel: The appellants in person
• Defendant Counsel: Ms Aurill Kam Su Chuen and Mr Russell Low Tzeh Shyian (Attorney-General's Chambers),Mr P E Ashokan (KhattarWong LLP)
• Subject Matter: Administrative Law,Legal Profession
• Citation: [2013] SGCA 45

Chao Hick Tin JA (delivering the oral judgment of the court):

The present appeal relates to the High Court’s dismissal of the Appellants’ application in OS 107/2013 (“the OS”) under O 53 r 1 of the Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 2006 Rev Ed) for leave to apply for judicial review of the Chief Justice’s (“CJ”) refusal to revoke the appointment of a Disciplinary Tribunal (“DT”) inquiring into the alleged misconduct of the Appellants. The only issue before this court is whether the Appellants have demonstrated that they meet the threshold test for leave to seek judicial review.

The principal object of the Appellants’ application in the OS was to obtain a mandatory order compelling the CJ to exercise his power under s 90(3)(a) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed) (“the LPA”) to revoke the appointment of the DT. This followed the unreserved withdrawal of the complaints lodged by one Ms Rankine against the Appellants, which had initially led to the appointment of the DT. On the same day that the OS was filed, the CJ informed the parties of his decision not to revoke the appointment of the DT so as to allow the disciplinary proceedings to take their course.¹ At the hearing of the OS before the High Court, the Appellants were granted leave to amend the OS so as to seek a quashing order against the CJ’s decision in addition to their prayer for a mandatory order.²

The Appellants’ arguments before us comprise two distinct strands. First, the Appellants contend that the CJ had abdicated his duty under s 90(3)(a) of the LPA by failing to make any decision at all. This is not so much because – as was their position in the High Court – the facts of the case must be taken as they stood at the point that the OS was filed, but because in their opinion, following the unqualified withdrawal of the complaints by Ms Rankine, and bearing in mind that the withdrawal was not disputed by the Law Society, the CJ must revoke the appointment of the DT. In effect, the CJ had not made any decision on the request. Second, even if it may be considered that the CJ had made a decision on the request, the Appellants contend that the CJ had breached a duty to provide reasons for his decision. In support of this proposition, the Appellants referred to Irish, Australian and Canadian case law. We will deal with these arguments seriatim.

Whether the CJ had abdicated his duty under s 90(3)(a) of the LPA?

We reject the Appellants’ contention that the CJ had to revoke the appointment of the DT and that his failure to do so constituted no decision at all. Indeed, the Appellants’ case on this score was constructed entirely upon unsupported assumptions. The key assumption was that the CJ did not even review the matter before declining to revoke the appointment of the DT. The evidence clearly points to the contrary. In the CJ’s first response to the parties, it was expressly stated that all the relevant correspondence had been placed before him.³ In a subsequent response dated 15 February 2013, the Appellants were informed that “[t]he Honourable the Chief Justice, having considered the matter, does not revoke the appointment of the Disciplinary Tribunal”⁴ [emphasis added]. The Appellants were unable to furnish any evidence that the CJ had been remiss in his review of the matter. Instead, the Appellants sought to infer from the absence of reasons that the CJ had not addressed his mind to the matter. As we will see later at [11]–[12] below, this inference is wholly unsound.

The Appellants’ contention assumed that had the CJ considered the material before him, he would inexorably have revoked the appointment of the DT. This is because the complaint against the Appellants had been withdrawn and the Law Society did not furnish any objections to the revocation of the DT’s appointment. The Appellants are of the view that in such circumstances, it was incumbent upon the CJ to revoke the appointment of the DT pursuant to s 90(3)(a) of the LPA. In this regard, we make the following observations. First, s 90(3)(a) of the LPA is an enabling provision which empowers the CJ to revoke the appointment of a DT. It confers a power which may be exercised at the discretion of the CJ after considering all the circumstances placed before him. The provision does not say that upon a particular fact situation arising, the CJ must revoke the appointment of a DT. Prima facie, the CJ’s discretion is unfettered. Second, the disciplinary process cannot be procedurally and substantively contingent on the subsistence of a complaint. Indeed, it is settled law that a DT, once seised of jurisdiction, will be unaffected by the withdrawal of the initial complaint. The basic rationale for this is that the DT has been appointed to investigate the charges formulated by the Law Society and not the complaints which occasioned those charges (see Law Society of Singapore v Ahmad Khalis bin Abdul Ghani [2006] 4 SLR(R) 308, Law Society of Singapore v Rajagopal Shan [1994] SGDSC 2 and Re Shan Rajagopal [1994] 2 SLR(R) 60). By analogy with criminal prosecutions, the investigation and hearing of disciplinary charges is predicated not on the validity of the complainant’s further thoughts in relation to his complaint, but on the propriety of the subject’s conduct. We would also underscore that the disciplinary process cannot be held hostage to the whims of complainants, who may, in the nature of things, have a multitude of personal reasons for choosing to submit and then withdraw a complaint. The fact that a complaint has been withdrawn does not necessarily mean that there was no truth to the complaint. It follows that the CJ was not obliged to reach that conclusion. Nor was it incumbent upon him to supplant the DT and undertake the investigation personally. It was...