Nagaenthran a/l K Dharmalingam v Attorney-General and another matter
Court | Court of Appeal (Singapore) |
Judge | Sundaresh Menon CJ |
Judgment Date | 26 May 2022 |
Neutral Citation | [2022] SGCA 44 |
Citation | [2022] SGCA 44 |
Docket Number | Civil Appeal No 61 of 2021 and Criminal Motion No 30 of 2021 |
Hearing Date | 25 May 2022 |
Plaintiff Counsel | The appellant in CA/CA 61/2021 and applicant in CA/CM 30/2021 not in attendance and unrepresented |
Defendant Counsel | Wong Woon Kwong, Tan Wee Hao and Andre Chong (Attorney-General's Chambers) |
Subject Matter | Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Compensation and costs,Prosecution urging court to make costs order against defence counsel personally,Civil Procedure,Costs,Personal liability of solicitor for costs |
Published date | 01 June 2022 |
On 29 March 2022, the Court of Appeal (“the CA”) dismissed both Civil Appeal No 61 of 2021 (“CA 61”) and Criminal Motion No 30 of 2021 (“CM 30”) in
By way of its written submissions dated 26 April 2022, AGC sought personal costs orders against both Mr Ravi and Ms Netto as follows:
On 12 May 2022, Mr Ravi filed a document entitled “Applicant’s Submissions on Costs”. On the same day, AGC stated that it had no objections to the late filing of Mr Ravi’s submissions. In the said document, Mr Ravi purported to submit, on behalf of Ms Netto and himself, that it is not just, in all the circumstances, to order personal costs against Ms Netto and him. Mr Ravi also stated that “a separate consideration should apply to [Ms Netto]”, though it is not clear what Mr Ravi meant by this. On 13 May 2022, we directed that (a) Ms Netto was to confirm that the submissions were filed on her behalf, and (b) Mr Ravi was to state the basis on which he purported to file the submissions on behalf of Ms Netto by 18 May 2022. On 18 May 2022, Ms Netto clarified by way of letter that the submissions were filed in Mr Ravi’s personal capacity and not on her behalf.
At the hearing before us today, Ms Netto appeared some ten minutes or so after we had started the proceedings. Shortly before the hearing, she had tendered a medical certificate which was not valid for excusing the subject of the certificate from attendance in court. This was issued yesterday but for unknown reasons was only advanced today. In any event, she made it clear she was not requesting an adjournment and said only that she was associating herself with Mr Ravi’s position.
Our decisionIn our judgment, this is an appropriate case in which personal costs orders ought to be made against both Mr Ravi and Ms Netto.
We begin by setting out the legal principles pertaining to personal costs orders against counsel.
For CA 61, the relevant provision is O 59 r 8(1)(
… The applicable test in deciding whether to order costs against a solicitor personally is the three-step test set out by the English Court of Appeal in
Ridehalgh v Horsefield [1994] Ch 205 at 231, which has been endorsed by this court inTang Liang Hong v Lee Kuan Yew and another and other appeals [1997] 3 SLR(R) 576 at [71] andHo Kon Kim v Lim Gek Kim Betsy and others and another appeal [2001] 3 SLR(R) 220 at [58]:- Has the legal representative of whom complaint is made acted improperly, unreasonably or negligently?
- If so, did such conduct cause the applicant to incur unnecessary costs?
- If so, is it in all the circumstances just to order the legal representative to compensate the applicant for the whole or any part of the relevant costs?
In relation to CM 30, the court hearing criminal proceedings has the power under s 357(1)(
The approach to be taken to the words “improperly”, “unreasonably” and “negligently” is as follows (see
‘Improper’ … covers, but is not confined to, conduct which would ordinarily be held to justify disbarment, striking off, suspension from practice or other serious professional penalty. It covers any significant breach of a substantial duty imposed by a relevant code of professional conduct. But it is not in our judgment limited to that....
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Iskandar bin Rahmat and others v Attorney-General and another
...of our pronouncements on this point in a variety of settings. In Nagaenthran a/l K Dharmalingam v Attorney-General and another matter [2022] SGCA 44, we rejected the submission made in the context of O 59 r 8(1)(c) of the Rules of Court (2014 Rev Ed) and s 357(1)(b) of the CPC that an order......