Public Prosecutor v Goh Chin Soon
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Crystal Ong |
| Judgment Date | 03 May 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] SGDC 129 |
| Court | District Court (Singapore) |
| Docket Number | DAC 32665 of 2012 & Ors. |
| Published date | 19 July 2018 |
| Year | 2018 |
| Hearing Date | 01 February 2018,29 May 2017,23 February 2018,07 February 2018,14 December 2016,16 December 2016,31 May 2017,27 February 2018,13 June 2017,15 December 2016,06 June 2017,14 February 2018,12 June 2017,05 June 2017 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | DPPs Shahla Iqbal and Jane Lim |
| Defendant Counsel | Prof. Tan Cheng Han, S.C. (instructed), Mr Quek Mong Hua and Ms Yik Shu Ying |
| Citation | [2018] SGDC 129 |
The accused person is a 62 year-old male Singaporean. He claimed trial to a total of 69 charges under the Immigration Act (Cap. 133) and the Passports Act (Cap. 220). These 69 charges arose from 23 occasions when he had entered and then exited Singapore using a Philippines passport. On the 23
Of these 69 charges, 23 charges were for making a false statement in the disembarkation forms under section 57(1)(k) and punishable under section 57(1)(vi) of the Immigration Act. The other 46 charges were for knowingly making use of a foreign travel document which was not issued to him under section 47(3) of the Passports Act.
At the conclusion of the trial, I found that the prosecution had proven the 23 charges under section 57(1)(k) of the Immigration Act beyond a reasonable doubt and I accordingly convicted the accused person of the same. As for the 46 charges under section 47(3) of the Passports Act, I exercised my discretion pursuant to section 128(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap. 68) and amended all 46 charges to charges under section 47(6) of the Passports Act instead. The defence recalled a number of prosecution witnesses with reference to the amended charges. After the recall was completed, I found that the 46 charges, as amended by the court, were made out beyond a reasonable doubt and I accordingly convicted the accused person on those amended charges.
I sentenced the accused person to 12 months’ imprisonment for each charge under section 47(6) of the Passports Act and 2 months’ imprisonment for each charge under section 57(1)(k) of the Immigration Act. I ordered the sentences for 2 charges under the Passports Act and 2 charges under the Immigration Act to run consecutively. The total sentence was therefore 28 months’ imprisonment.
Being dissatisfied with my decision, the accused person filed an appeal against conviction and sentence. The prosecution, being similarly dissatisfied with the sentence, filed a cross-appeal. I now set out the reasons for my decision.
Passports Act
The 46 Passports Act charges were originally framed under section 47(3) which states as follows:
If ---
- a person uses in Singapore a
foreign travel document in connection with travel or identification;- the
foreign travel document was not issued to that person; and- the person knows or ought reasonably to have known that the
foreign travel document was not issued to him,the person shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to both.
At the conclusion of the trial, and after considering the parties’ closing submissions, I amended the 46 charges to offences under section 47(6) instead. Section 47(6) states:
If ---
- a person had possession or control of a document; and
- the person knows or ought reasonably to have known that the document is a
false foreign travel document ;the person shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $10,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to both.
The prescribed punishment for both offences is identical. Further, as provided for in section 47(7), the defence of “reasonable excuse” can be pleaded for both offences. The difference turns on whether the passport in question is a “foreign travel document” or a “false foreign travel document”. A “foreign travel document” is defined in section 2 of the Passports Act as:
A passport or a document issued for travel purposes (whether or not also issued for another purpose), that is issued by or on behalf of the government of a foreign country or such international organisation as the Minister may approve.
A “false foreign travel document” is defined in section 2 as:
but that was not issued by or on behalf of that government or international organisation; or
The crucial distinction between whether a foreign travel document is defined as false under the Passports Act or not is therefore whether the government which that passport purports to be issued by did in fact issue it.
Immigration Act
As for the offences in relation to the disembarkation forms, section 57(1)(k) and section 57(1)(vi) of the Immigration Act state:
Any person who, by making a false statement obtains or attempts to obtain an entry or a re-entry permit, pass, Singapore visa or certificate for himself or for any other person, shall be guilty of an offence.
In the case of an offence under paragraph (k), shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $4,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to both.
The accused person’s particulars are as follows:
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On 7 September 2012, the accused person arrived at the Departure Section of Terminal 3, Changi Airport, with the intention of boarding flight SQ866 to Hong Kong. In order to obtain clearance to exit Singapore, the accused person produced a Philippines passport bearing serial number WW0538286 (“the Philippines passport”) to Corporal Rashidah Mohd Latif, an immigration officer, at the checkpoint.
The Philippines passport, which the accused person was in possession of, bore his photograph and contained the following particulars:
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The accused person was subsequently placed under arrest and the Philippines passport seized.
Investigations later revealed that the accused person had entered Singapore on 23 occasions and exited Singapore on 22 occasions using the Philippines passport. The first time he entered Singapore using the Philippines passport was on 20 March 2011.
On each of the 23 occasions that he had entered Singapore, he had produced the Philippines passport and a corresponding disembarkation form which he had signed, to the immigration officer at an arrival checkpoint. For each of these 23 occasions, an immigration officer had granted the accused person a Visit Pass to enter Singapore by endorsing the Philippines passport with a stamp.
On each of the 23 disembarkation forms which the accused person had produced to the respective immigration officers on the 23 occasions, he had obtained a Visit Pass by stating the following:
On each of these 23 occasions, the immigration officer, to whom the accused person had provided the Philippines passport and disembarkation form to, would not have issued the Visit Pass but for the fact that the aforesaid documents were furnished to him or her.
In tandem with these 23 occasions when the accused person had entered Singapore, he had successfully exited Singapore on 22 occasions by producing the Philippines passport to an immigration officer at a departure checkpoint. On the last occasion, he had entered Singapore on 31 August 2012 using the Philippines passport and was arrested when he attempted to exit on 7 September 2012.
Investigations revealed that on 17 November 2000, the accused person was issued with a Singapore passport bearing his name, i.e. Goh Chin Soon.
On 28 April 2010, the accused person had applied for a Singapore passport at the Consulate-General of Singapore in Xiamen, China.
On 30 January 2012, the accused person made another application for a Singapore passport in his name, i.e. Goh Chin Soon – this was done online. In February 2012, he was informed that his application was successful and that the passport was ready for collection in Xiamen, China.
The prosecution’s case centred on the unchallenged statements which the accused person gave after he was arrested as well as the oral evidence which he gave when he was on the stand. The prosecution also called witnesses from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (“ICA”) and the Philippines embassy. Their case is summarised as follows.
Sometime in 2001, the accused person left Singapore and went to China for business reasons. He was in possession of a Singapore passport at that time. On 28 April 2010, the accused person submitted an application for a Singapore passport at the Consulate-General of Singapore in Xiamen, China. He was informed that the application could not be processed until he settled his outstanding issues with the Insolvency & Public Trustee’s Office (“IPTO”) and the Identity Card (“IC”) Unit of the ICA. At that time, the Singapore passport which he had been issued with was still valid as it expired only on 17 November 2010.
At some point in time in the same year, i.e. 2010, the accused person wanted to return to Singapore. He had been informed that his mother was seriously ill. At the same time, he also wanted to travel to other countries for business. As...
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