Law Society of Singapore vs Gopalan Nair, the players

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Disciplinary Hearings against me for criticizing the Singapore Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in this blog, other Singapore judges, among other charges has begun in Singapore. It began yesterday Sept 20, 2010 and will go on for the next 4 days to Sept 24, 2010.

As you are aware, I had asked for a guarantee from the Tribunal and the Singapore Attorney General among other government organizations, that I will not be arrested again if I went there to attend. To date no guarantee has been given. As you are aware from my blogs written since my return to the US in late November 2008, I would have have committed various other crimes under the Singapore understanding of the law and therefore returning to the island now would mean certain arrest and imprisonment.

I have lately received voluminous boxes of documents from the Law Society Counsel and the Tribunal in regards to this case, but I have not bothered to read them. It is a waste of time. These are Kangaroo proceedings which should be shown the contempt they deserve.

I have already written here what they are charging me with, which in any other jurisdiction would have been reason for applause and praise rather than for discipline. In democracies, political dissidents are respected instead of punished. The point of this exercise by Singapore is puzzling, since, if the purpose was to shut me up, they should know by now it will not happen.

On the other hand, if the purpose is to intimidate other Singapore lawyers, it would serve no purpose as well since they have already been intimidated and the only other result of it would be to cause even further attrition from the already dwindling number of lawyers practicing there from the already minuscule figure of 3,000 for the island's population of 5 million!

Moreover, it would be serving my purpose instead of theirs since the world will know of one more instance of the abuse of the law to silence dissent, confirming the 72 page report of the International Bar Association on Singapore; not to mention the huge time, expense and trouble that I put them to in this exercise.

To remind you once again, there are 5 charges against me.

Charges 1 and 2) That on the 4th of July I had used intemperate language against Lee Kuan Yew's police officers and had behaved in a disorderly manner. I have denied this entirely and was convicted solely on the evidence of police officers who parrot like repeated one after the other the same thing well rehearsed and regurgitated.

How distorted the whole trial was is seen in the fact that although the Singapore newspapers reported there to be 25 bystanders witnessing my arrest, not one independant witness was called to testify. In any case even if I had yelled at police officers, for the sake of argument, in no country in the world would I be severly punished, let alone disbarred. The most would have been a warning not to misbehave.

Charge 3) That in this blog dated May 29, 2008 "Singapore. Judge Belinda Ang's Kangaroo court", after explaining various instances of the misconduct of the Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean, I had written the words " The Judge Belinda Ang was throughout prostituting herself during the entire proceedings by being nothing more than an employee of Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders." The word "prostituted" was a correct use of the English language as meaning "someone who had abused her office for a dishonest purpose". The words were justified in the context of what she had done and what I had described in the blog.

Charge 4) For defying an undertaking given to judge Leslie Chew not to criticize the Singapore judges again in contempt of court charges brought against me. I had given that undertaking while I was incarcerated in Singapore for criticizing judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean, and threatened with a longer prison term if I did not give in. My undertaking was not given freely and voluntarily. I had no intention of keeping that promise once I was outside Singapore. Accordingly once I landed in California, I withdrew my undertaking and apology and repeated the criticisms.

Charge 5) The same thing as what was said about Judge Belinda Ang in the case of Judge Judith Prakash when she sent to jail 3 young men for contempt of court merely for wearing Tshirts with pictures of Kangaroos in robes.

The procedure which the system adopts in Discipline cases there is firstly these Disciplinary Tribunal hearings are held. They are conducted in private meaning the public are not present. After that the report of the Tribunal, which we know in this case will be guilty, will be forwarded to a 3 Judge Panel of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew's judges. That hearing is open to public where predictably I will be disbarred from the Rolls, not because of what I did, but because of who I am. That will be some time in the future.

At present, because of my writings, I am unable to return to Singapore not to mention practicing there. In any case these entire proceedings are moot, since it is mind boggling why they spend so much time and energy going against a lawyer who cannot even step foot in Singapore.

I am not surprised why this oligarchy in Singapore do this sort of thing, since you see the entire history of the island as a series of stupidity which has finally resulted in the present day Singapore, an island almost bereft of native Singaporeans who are hurriedly leaving the island in droves, being replaced by foreigners who know nothing of the country.

If you want to call this entire exercise an opera, the following are the key players:

1. Peter Cuthbert Low (Singapore native ethnic Chinese) Lawyer representing the Law Society who is prosecuting me. On the outside, it would appear that it is the Law Society which is doing this. But as in any other fascist government, the Singapore Law Society works at the behest of the Lee Kuan Yew government. You can therefore safely assume he is carrying out the orders of the government to punish the troublesome meddler, Gopalan Nair. Of course, this dirty work comes with it's rewards. He can look forward to more lucrative government contracts and in future perhaps even a judgeship. He works in the law firm Colin Ng and Partners LLP, 36 Carpenter Street, Singapore 059915, Tel: 65 6349 2373, Email: peterlow@cnplaw.com.

2. The Tribunal President, the judge hearing the case is Toh Kian Sing. He works in the firm Rajah and Tann, 9 Battery Road, #25-01, Straits Trading Building, Singapore 049910, Tel: 65 6232 0614, Email: kian.sing.toh@rajahtann.com. He is the other opportunist in this opera performed under the direction of Lee Kuan Yew and his Singapore government.

3. The Tribunal Judge, hearing the case with the Tribunal President is Tan Jee Ming. He works for Straits Law Practice LLP, 36 Robinson road, #18-00, City House, Singapore 068877, Tel: (65) 6514 1203. This firm does not have dedicated Emails for their lawyers. The general Email is mail@straitslaw.com.sg. Another opportunist pleasing Lee Kuan Yew in Lee Kuan Yew's island.

4. Then there is the mysterious Audrey Lim. Initially when these proceedings started, it was she writing to me on behalf of the Disciplinary Tribunal. Her letters were signed Audrey Lim, Deputy Registrar High Court. I did some research and found out from the Supreme Court web site that Audrey Lim has another full name, Lim Yoon Cheng. In order to ensure that this woman is not trying to conceal her true identity and also for the simple purpose of knowing who we are dealing with, I asked Angela Chopard of the Law Society who was signing some letters whether she knew the real name of Audrey Lim and if it was Audrey Lim Yoon Cheng. It was not altogether surprising, since concealing the identity of government personnel with nicknames is a normal practice there, almost predictably she claimed that she did not know the real name of Audrey Lim. Thereafter I elected to deal with Chopard instead.

I wonder why Chopard was protecting Audrey Lim Yoon Cheng, was it a default mechanism not to reveal real names in Singapore or something else I do not know.

The reader would be reminded that this woman Audrey Lim Yoon Cheng, instead of being an impartial officer in these proceedings was adamant not to provide any assistance to me at all. For instance, I had written to her, in her capacity of representing the Tribunal, asking for transcripts of the court records of my cases in Singapore, documents that were crucial to my defense. Her reply was that it was not her responsibility to arrange any of it and I should write to the relevant authorities for anything I want. The same when I asked that arrangements be made for me to enter Singapore since I was banned from entry.

The reader would agree that in jurisdictions all over the world, when proceedings are commenced against an individual such as myself, especially when he is not living in the country, the Tribunal has to ensure that the Defendant is provided with the necessary material and assistance so as to enable him to defend. Countries do this because they do not want to be seen as deliberately obstructing the Defendant. Obviously Singapore does not care about it's image on this score.

I guess in her eagerness to please the Singapore government in this exercise of disbarring a troublesome lawyer, she was determined to be seen as obstructive and obnoxious as possible.

She is Audrey Lim (full name Audrey Lim Yoon Cheng) ethnic native Chinese Singaporean, works as Deputy Registrar, Singapore Supreme Court, 1 Supreme Court Lane, Singapore 178879, Tel: (65) 6557 7541, Email: audrey_lim@supcourt.gov.sg.

There are of course the usual junior clerks and workers who do not have much education or understanding of much, which the former Devan Nair referred to as Lee Kuan Yew's "department store dummies". Among them is such like Angela Chopard of the Law Society who has been communicating the bad news to me on behalf of the Singapore Law Society, the proxy of the Lee Kuan Yew government. They can be ignored without more as the product of 50 years of brainwashing under one party rule. You find them in any fascist government including that of Hitler and Mussolini. They merely consider this their job, nothing more. They are so afraid and helpless, they would go along with anything.

If you are outraged by what is happening, please contact the above parties with a piece of your mind.

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/

Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.