Ladies and Gentlemen,
My advice to Singapore students embarking on a university education is this. If you had any decency about you, stay as far away from the legal profession as you can. Lee ruling family's Singapore legal profession is not what it appears to be. It is rotten to the core. If you had no scruples whatsoever, you would enjoy being a lawyer in Singapore. Otherwise very soon, you would hate not only the law but yourself as well.
The Lee ruling family of Singapore, throughout the 52 years or so being in power, had only one aim, which was to rule Singapore. Under their thinking only they had the right to rule Singapore in perpetuity, no one else.
The problem was that Singapore was established on English parliamentary democracy, which means having a Constitution, a bill of rights, human rights and the rule of law. But if all these things have any power, it would also mean that Lee Kuan Yew's intention of him and his family alone to ruling the island faces an obstacle. Democracy means allowing others an equal chance to form the government, which could mean the end of the Lee Kuan Yew dynasty.
Therefore although on paper these things existed, Lee made sure that in reality, it meant nothing at all. None of these things such as human rights were talked about. No one talked about the principle of free speech and expression, the idea of a free press or an independent judiciary. And with the entire media now under the Lee ruling family's control, these things never saw the light of day anyway.
Opposition politicians such as JB Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan who spoke of these things, were severely punished and removed from politics altogether. Those who were able to survive were the type of Low Thia Khiang who would go to Parliament and talk of the high cost of living, but not the issues of fundamental human rights; a sort of pseudo opposition who had one foot in the ruling party's interests.
The Lee ruling family very cleverly played the carrot and the stick game making sure that young lawyers never dared to challenge the ruling party's denial of the people's rights. Men such as Davinder Singh, Lee's lawyer for defamation cases, GP Selvam who abused the law to finish off his Lee’s opponents, Lee's Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who shamelessly abuses the law to bankrupt and jail Chee Soon Juan another of Lee's political opponents, all archived great success. On the other hand if you dared to raise issues such as human rights, not only would your career be adversely affected, you would be lucky if you were not disbarred altogether.
Today Singapore's successful lawyers are a thoroughly unscrupulous lot, men and women who would never even imagine representing a victim of Lee's repression, but someone who practices only corporate and civil law, areas which would not attract the Lee ruling family's wrath. In fact, if you were a target for Lee’s punishment, you simply would not find a single lawyer willing to represent you.
What sort of lawyers are these anyway? What do you call a person who has studied the law, understands what is meant by the rule of law, understands what is a Constitution, understands that the law guarantees certain human rights on individuals such as the right to free speech and expression, the right to a free press, the right to be free from arbitrary arrest and the right to peaceful protest; but yet pretends that none of these things exist?
Lawyers by their training are the very people who know these rights and are in the best position to defend them. Yet Singapore lawyers, through the long years of behavior training by Lee ruling family, like you would train a dog, have finally accepted not to even think of such things as defending human rights of Singapore citizens who literally live in bondage today.
So unless you are a person who does not think very highly of yourself, quite prepared to accept the Lee ruling family requirements of never challenging him or defending the rights of his victims, and are lacking in values which you expect to find in lawyers all over the world and quite prepared to accept this sort of a low life, then stay away from the Singapore legal profession completely.
The Lee ruling family is already suffering from their own misguided path. Today Singapore being an island state of nearly 5 million people (although 2.5 million are recent immigrants), it only has about 3000 lawyers and almost every attempt to induce more to join have failed.
Which shows, I am not the only one who is aware of Singapore Strongman Lee's disgraceful legal profession. The word appears to have got around very well.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Disbarred from practicing law in Lee's Singapore, imprisoned and refused entry to the island for criticizing Singapore's judiciary in this blog (see blogpost May 29, 2008 Singapore. Judge Belinda Ang's Kangaroo Court)
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).
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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