Public Prosecutor v Chum Tat Suan

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choo Han Teck J
• Judgment Date: 24 October 2013
• Neutral Citation: [2013] SGHC 221
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 1 of 2012
• Published date: 29 October 2013
• Year: 2013
• Hearing Date: 14 May 2013,30 September 2013,15 May 2013,13 May 2013,08 May 2013,20 June 2013,10 May 2013,05 August 2013,09 May 2013
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mohamed Faizal and Qiu Huixiang (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Nandwani Manoj Prakash and Eric Liew (Gabriel Law Corporation)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Statutory offences,Misuse of Drugs Act,Discretion of court not to impose sentence of death
• Citation: [2013] SGHC 221

Choo Han Teck J:

The accused was charged with importing not less than 94.96g of diamorphine into Singapore, an offence under s 7 and punishable under s 33 of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) (“the Act”). On 5 August 2013, I convicted the accused and handed down a written judgment explaining my reasons for doing so (Public Prosecutor v Chum Tat Suan [2013] SGHC 150). Prior to 1 January 2013, when a number of legislative amendments came into effect, a sentence of death would have been mandatory upon such a conviction. However, the newly-enacted s 33B of the Act provides that, in certain circumstances, a sentence of death that would have been mandatory will no longer be so. Parties accordingly sought, and I granted, an adjournment to prepare submissions on sentence.

I should now briefly describe what the heading to s 33B of the Act calls the “[d]iscretion of court not to impose sentence of death”. The Act’s terminology in this regard is not entirely accurate, because in one of the two sets of circumstances defined by s 33B the court has no discretion but must sentence the convicted accused to imprisonment for life instead of imposing the death penalty. Nonetheless, the language captures the thrust of s 33B, which is that it defines two sets of circumstances in which a sentence of death that would have been mandatory before the legislative amendments came into effect may not or cannot be imposed. One set of circumstances, defined by s 33B(2) read with s 33B(1)(a), might perhaps be termed for convenience the “substantive assistance” situation, because it requires that the Public Prosecutor certify that the accused substantively assisted the Central Narcotics Bureau in disrupting drug trafficking activities in order for the court to have the discretion to impose a sentence of life imprisonment plus caning instead of the sentence of death. The other set of circumstances, defined by s 33B(3) read with s 33B(1)(b), might perhaps be termed for convenience the “mental abnormality” situation, because it requires that the accused person suffered from such abnormality of mind as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts in order for the court not to impose the sentence of death.

Common to both sets of circumstances is that, in order to bring himself within their ambit and so to avail himself of reprieve from the death penalty, the accused must prove on a balance of probabilities that he was no more than a “courier”, ie, he must prove that his involvement in trafficking, importing or exporting drugs was restricted to the activities listed in s 33B(2)(a), which are identical to the activities listed in s 33B(3)(a). It should be noted that the word “courier” is nowhere to be found in the Act, but I employ it as convenient shorthand in the same way that members of Parliament did in the course of debates on the legislative amendments.

Parties returned before me on 30 September 2013. They informed me of their agreement on what ought to be the procedure to follow in sentencing the accused. According to that procedure, this hearing on 30...