Ave Caesar morituri te salutant (Hail, Caesar, Those who are about to die, salute you!)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Now since it is confirmed in the state controlled Singapore newspapers, the Straits Times that Singapore Law Society has commenced disciplinary proceedings against me as a lawyer in Singapore, you can now correctly predict that I am now, as good as disbarred. Once Lee Kuan Yew has his sights on you, you are as good as dead, disbarred or whatever. You are, so to speak, history.

Retribution is swift and certain. In this case, as the severest punishment is disbarment, we can all be certain of that. I am for all intents an purposes, now a disbarred lawyer in Singapore's bizarre legal system, where Lee Kuan Yew reigns supreme in the law and everything else.

And since it is now the end of the line for me, as regards any prospects in that line of work there,(not that I ever had any aspirations in that direction in the first place) it brings to mind the cry of the Roman gladiators in the arena just about to be devoured by the lions for Caesar's pleasure "Hail Caesar, those who about to die salute you!" or in my case here "Hail, Lee Kuan Yew, Gopalan Nair just about to be disbarred, salutes you!" Well what other choice does either the poor gladiator or I have anyway, in his case he is going to be the lion's supper, and in my case, I am going to be struck off the Singapore Rolls of lawyers!

And for those who are wondering what terrible crimes I committed to deserve being disbarred, let me tell you. In 1984, I joined the opposition political party in Singapore. One can argue, in Uniquely Singapore, that that by itself was crime number one. In 1988 I wrote a letter to the then Attorney General as to why he had falsely claimed that the Privy council of England and Wales had not given him an opportunity to appear at the hearing in London in the case of JB Jeyaretnam vs the Law Society of Singapore, Crime number 2. In 1991 at an election rally in Bukit Merah where I stood as a candidate in the 1991 Parliamentary elections, I made a speech to the public that the practice of Subordinate Court Judges being under the Legal Service Commission gave the impression of lack of impartiality, crime number 3. In 1988 when I had written to various foreign embassies and consulates in Singapore about the injustice meted to my client by the Singapore HDB who was unjustly thrown out from his apartment, crime number 4. Last year when I criticized Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean for her bias against Dr. Chee Soon Juan in the defamation case, crime number 5. Verbally abusing police officers along Bukit Timah Road, which I never did, crime number 6. And I guess the biggest crime of all, writing this blog without let up, crime number 7. In Lee Kuan Yew's unique legal system, which he claims, believe it or not to be the best in the world, I am the worst incorrigible criminal and deserve to be disbarred for life!

I have wondered, as you might have guessed by now, why all this is happening anyway! I had left Singapore for good in 1991, 18 years ago. I have never renewed my lawyer's practicing certificate there all these years. I am no longer a citizen of Singapore. I have never had any desire to practice law in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore! And what caps it all, I am prohibited from even entering Singapore! In these circumstances, I am sure, like me, you too would have wondered the point of this exercise!

If the purpose is to stop me from criticizing Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore for the lack of the rule of law there, surely that is not going to happen. If it is designed to punish me, surely that is not possible either since I live in a democracy. If it is designed to depict me in bad light, that plan has not worked and turned out counter productive.

I guess we will just have to leave Lee Kuan Yew's motive as another instance of Singapore's unique practices; perhaps intended to drive away even more right thinking Singaporeans away from it's shores. We already have been told that as many as 1000 Singaporeans give up their citizenship's for that of other countries annually.

Now since I have given the customary salutation to the supreme ruler Lee Kuan Yew as the condemned gladiators of Rome did to Caesar, let me come to this article which I intend to write; which is something about Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Law Society, who in this instance are my accusers; who are of course doing it at the behest of Lee Kuan Yew himself, just as everything else in Singapore is.

Truly, I had only contempt for that body. I had gone to England to read law hoping to return to Singapore to practice it. The problem was I never truly knew what the Singapore Law Society, the professional body of lawyers of which I had to be a member, was. Just as anyone else, not privy to it's secrets, I thought, just as anyone else would have believed, that it was a body of lawyers, who know the law and who work to advance the interests of their client according to law. And the law, on paper was a democracy, based on the rule of law, with fundamental rights of freedom, free speech and assembly and a free press. And with an independent impartial judiciary to uphold the rights of it's people.

In Singapore, within a couple of years of my practicing law, I discovered that all this was untrue. It was not a democracy. There was no rule of law. Lawyers were incapable of furthering the interests of their clients because they have no rights and the judiciary was working not to protect individual rights but that of the Lee Kuan Yew family.

I also discovered that the way to success at the Singapore Bar, is not through hard work and constant study. It was by joining Lee Kuan Yew's Peoples Action Party and being his loyal supporter. This would mean your employment with a government connected law firm like Drew and Napier which receives the bulk of legal work there in government contracts. It would also mean you would very likely win all your cases as the judges are careful not to go against government connected firms like this.

You see, I was not like that. I could not compromise my principles. I was brought up by my parents believing honor and integrity is worth more than all the riches in the world. Honesty, integrity, compassion and a desire to do good for society was placed higher than the mere acquisition of wealth through dishonest means, like the lawyers in firms such as Drew ands Napier live their lives.

And because of the way I felt, very soon I was thoroughly discouraged by my whole purpose there as a lawyer. The Law Society, I discovered were a castrated bunch who were afraid to speak up for the law. And it's president like the present ethnic Chinese man, Michael Sydney Hwang (fancy name indeed) is the chief eunuch, if you could call him that, running Lee Kuan Yew's errands rather than upholding the law, which he should be doing. Afraid of Lee Kuan Yew and what he might do to them if they criticized, the Law Society of Singapore is a completely gutless powerless organization. It is Lee Kuan Yew who decides what the law should be, what rights you can or cannot have and how you will live your lives; not the Law Society. Truly, it made no difference one way or another whether the Law Society existed or not. In fact like in this case against me, one of the principle Law Society's duties is to punish anyone who criticized Lee Kuan Yew and his government; that is, it became an instrument of repression against the people, rather than their champion.

The legal profession in Hitler's Third Reich and that of Mussolini were no different. The state apparatus in these countries too used their legal professions to silence government critics and tighten the laws to serve their rulers.

The Law Society of Singapore is a disgraceful organization, consumed by fear and powerless to do any good. There are no regrets in being disbarred from it. In fact, for any self respecting upstanding individual, being a member of it would be an insult by itself.

As for now, I wait to hear their charges.

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/

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