Singapore's submissive half lawyers

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore which claims to be a democracy but which is in fact a one party totalitarian state, almost everything else in the island is simply make believe.

Someone in Russia once mentioned the phrase "The Singapore Model" which went something like this

"Claim to be a democracy but in fact it is a totalitarian state; claim to have free speech but deny it; claim to have freedom of assembly but deny it; claim to have a free press but control it anyway" and so on.

This pretense is also equally applicable to the island's lawyers, which is why I call them half lawyers.

Lawyers there engage themselves primarily in civil, commercial cases and criminal cases.

They are permitted to practice to the extent allowed by the Lee Kuan Yew who controls the courts.

There are no juries either for civil or criminal cases.

Judges are appointed according to their willingness to serve the Lee Kuan Yew
administration and bend the rules whenever demanded of them.

As for criminal trials, it is one law for the Lee ruling family and close friends, a mere slap on the wrist for crimes committed by them, and the full extent of the law for others.

As for human rights, the lawyers either do not know or do not care for such cases. No Singapore lawyer has ever brought a case for a client who was denied his right of free speech, expression or assembly or any other human right and managed to live happily ever after.

The newspapers which are state controlled routinely publish false and misleading information so as to make themselves look good.

For instance, today’s Straits Times, one of the island's state controlled newspapers has the story "More than 4,300 lawyers practicing here today" See http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/more-4300-local-lawyers-practising-here-today-lawsoc-president-2013010.

In fact the truth is completely contrary.

Singapore has a population of 5 million.

According to this article, the number of lawyers rose by about 1,000 since 2007,

That is during 5 years.

This number is totally inadequate for any city claiming to be engaged in global business.

London, New York, San Francisco and Sydney have perhaps 40 times that number. All of them suffer from the problem of too many lawyers, not too little like Singapore’s.

It seems the law is an attractive and very desirable profession everywhere else, except in Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore.

Moreover because of the reluctance of locals from entering the profession, Lee's one party totalitarian state had to resort to foreigners to become lawyers in Singapore, a disgraceful situation, only found there.

Nowhere else in the world has the legal profession resorted to foreigners because locals don’t want to become lawyers.  

In fact this state controlled newspaper article itself admits that in this period, the number of foreign lawyers far exceeded the locals.

Without exact figures, which Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore legal profession refuses to publish, understandably out of embarrassment, it could be assumed that during this entire period, there was no increase in the local lawyer population or that in fact it has decreased.

Singapore one party police state is not fooling anyone by publishing such nonsense in their state controlled media just as the Soviet Union's Pravda and Izvestia didn't fool anyone in Russia either.

The truth is non other than that the Singapore legal profession is simply a bad place to practice law.

In fact you have to be some sort of a disgraceful chameleon, deliberately shutting your eyes to things such as human rights, something lawyers are inherently trained to do, just because Lee Kuan Yew forbids it, and like a horse in blinkers simply practice in such areas such as commercial law which Lee Kuan Yew is willing to allow.

Singapore lawyers are just half lawyers, not even worth the title of lawyer, people who out of fear of Lee Kuan Yew administration willingly allow themselves to stay away from areas which Singapore strongman disapproves, representing a population which has been themselves terrified into silence and obedience.

Any lawyer worth his salt has either emigrated or has refused to practice law in the island. As for newcomers into the profession, there are none except the handful who do not think very highly of themselves and are willing to lower themselves to Lee Kuan Yew’s level.  

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 4375