Singapore's "great" lawyer Davinder Singh debunked

Edited Dec 18, 2011, 1840 hrs Pacific Standard time

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times online edition of Dec 6, 2011 has the story "Singapore senior counsel Davinder Singh scores a first". But the "first" which he appears to have scored would instead be a badge of shame for a lawyer anywhere else other than Singapore.

Davinder Singh has risen to prominence in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore for having never lost a case in all the cases, defamation of character to be exact, that he has argued before his client's (Lee Kuan Yew) judges in Singapore.

For those who are not yet privy to the goings on in the legal scene in that island, let me explain. The phrase "Kangaroo courts" could not be better described by any other courts in the world other than Singapore.

Instead of rule of law which the Constitution requires, it is rule of Lee Kuan Yew in his courts and every single judge sits there at his pleasure and removable and punished if ever they dare to decide against him in any case he brings. And the cases he brings are the defamation of character type.

In other words every time someone who either had the courage or the stupidity, depending on which way you look at it, to criticize him in his island, as I had to learn it the painful way by spending 3 months in prison there for criticizing his judges, he would sue that person, and his lawyer of choice is this turbaned Indian Davinder Singh.

Since the judge is already prepared to do anything that he wants to please Lee Kuan Yew even before he steps into the courtroom, Singh's efforts are more perfunctory than any real legal work. If he argued that the the Moon was made of cheese, that too would probably be accepted as law.

Since Lee is supposed to win no matter what, one begins to wonder why spend all that time and effort going through the motions of examination and cross examination and instead, like the Queen Rabbit suggested in the trial of the stolen tart in Alice in Wonderland, why not proceed to with the judgement first, then hear the evidence!

I think you get the gist of what I am trying to describe are Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore courts and what this man Davinder Singh and his "accomplishments" are.

Coming back to this newspaper article, it describes how this man has recently represented the Sultan of Brunei in a case which involved the question of the Sultan having the power to summarily dismiss any army officer in the Brunei Armed Forces he did not like instead of having to follow due process of law as in any other democracy's courts martial.

The Sultan of Brunei is a despot no better than Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore who runs roughshod over his people who so far have accepted any nonsense from him just because he throws money at them.

So representing this Brunei tyrant to run roughshod over his army officers without due process was not in any sense a cause worth representing in the first place, and there is no honor at all in such as case, in fact it is an absolute disgrace.

In the past, the Sultan of Brunei with all his money used to fly in top English barristers to argue for him but I suspect in this case, the barristers themselves had seen the total lack of merit in the Sultan's attempt to deny his officers any possibility of defending themselves as a cause which is so unworthy that it would mar their legal reputation to do it; so they refused the brief even though highly paid.

So as the Sultan is left without his usual lawyers, who else to turn to than to the likes of this turbaned Indian Sikh who would be prepared to do anything for money, having achieved his "reputation" as the Singpaore dictator's lawyer.

And the Straits Times , Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew's mouthpiece trumpets this representation of the Brunei Sultan in a totally unmeritorius case as "a first"!

Davinder Singh by this has not created any "first" at all. If it is a first, it is the first time that we see in Singapore's history, a thoroughly unscrupulous character who has achieved fame by repeatedly harming his fellow Singaporeans who have stood up for freedom, such as JB Jeyaretanm and today Dr. Chee Soon Juan, both of whom, thanks to him have been repeatedly jailed, impoverished and bankrupted not because the law says so but because his client Lee Kuan Yew wants them to be destroyed.

And now he continues on this long career of dirty work by arguing that in this day and age, 2011, it is quite acceptable for the Sultan of Brunei to strut around like a prize rooster in his tiny Brunei and dismiss any army officer without any due process of law.

In fact Davinder Singh, if he tried to be admitted to any other legal profession in any other democracy would be disciplined and disbarred because a lawyer should not represent a client when he knows that client's case has no merit whatsoever.

Davinder Singh has blood on his hands. I suppose as long as Lee Kuan Yew his benefactor and client who runs the show in Singapore is still alive, he will continue to prosper at the bar doing his "brilliant" legal work.

After his 89 year old sickly dictator kicks the bucket which is going to happen any time soon, as to what happens to him after that, your guess is as good as mine. You see, sooner or later each one of us is held accountable to our actions.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Disbarred from practicing law in Lee's Singapore and refused entry to the island for criticizing Singapore's judiciary.
Actively practicing law in California and in good standing at the California Bar.
Member in good standing as a lawyer in England and Wales (Barrister).
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