Saturday, June 30, 2012

My letter to the Commonweath Secretariat on the Maldives Inquiry and former Singapore judge GP Selvam

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have written the following Email dated today June 30, 2012, to the Commonwealth Secretariat on the unsutability of this man GP Selvam to officiate over the Maldives Inquiry Commission. If you agree that such a man is clearly unsuitable, I would urge others in Maldives and the rest of the world to write to the Secretariat expressing your concern.
Thank you.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107


Dear Commonwealth Secretariat
Maldives Commission of Inquiry

Dear Sir,
I have been informed that a former Singapore judge GP Selvam has been appointed by you to officiate over the Inquiry as regards the coup.

I wish to inform you that in my opinion, this man is totally unsuitable for the post as a result of a defect of moral character.

I was born in Singapore and was a lawyer there from 1981 to 1991 after which I left for the US and obtained political asylum. I am now a US Citizen practicing law in California.

During my legal career in Singapore I had joined Singapore's opposition party, the Workers Party and worked in trying to unseat the then Lee Kuan Yew administration. As is the style of the Lee administration, the law was used to harass, intimidate and destroy me both politically and otherwise. And this man, GP Selvam, as a Singapore judge, willingly abused the law to suspend me for 2 years in approximately 1991 merely for writing a letter to the Attorney General of Singapore.

I had written to Singapore Attorney General for his reasons on why he refused to advice the President of Singapore to grant a pardon to the late Singapore opposition politician JB Jeyaretnam. The disciplinary proceedings against me arose out of my writing the 2 letters.

The brief facts are as follows:
1. In the 1980s JB Jeyaretnam, a lawyer, was the bete noire of Lee Kuan Yew politically. Lee was determined to destroy JB Jeyaretnam.
2. No doubt under his orders, the Attorney General of Singapore Tan Boon Teik filed 3 charges involving check fraud against JB Jeyaretnam.
3. The Singapore court found him guilty. He appealed to the High Court in Singapore and lost. There was no further appeal.
4. The Law Society of Singapore commenced disciplinary proceedings against him. He was found guilty and disbarred in Singapore. At this time in lawyer disciplinary proceedings there was another appeal to the Privy Council in London (the House of Lords). Jeyaretnam appealed to London.
5. The London court found JB Jeyaretnam not guilty on all counts. This is their outraged message
"Their Lordships have to record their deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgments, the appellant and his co-accused Wong, have suffered a grievous injustice. They have been fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for offences of which they are not guilty. The appellant, in addition, has been deprived of his seat in Parliament and disqualified for a year from practicing his profession. Their Lordships order restores him to the roll of advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Singapore, but, because of the course taken by the criminal proceedings, their Lordships have no power to right the other wrongs which the appellant and Wong have suffered. Their only prospect of redress, their Lordships understand, will be by way of petition for pardon to the President of the Republic of Singapore."
6. Since applying for a pardon was Jeyretnam's only option to restore his good name, he formally applied for a pardon.
7. The Attorney General of Singapore, advising the president of Singapore, wrote his objection to any pardon which was published in the Singapore paper Straits Times. He said a) because he was not given an opportunity to appear at the London proceedings the London judgment was flawed b) as Jeyaretnam had not shown "remorse, repentance and contrition for the crimes he committed" he should not be pardoned.
8. I knew that the statement of the Attorney General that he was not allowed to appear at the London court was patently untrue. In fact the solicitor for the Singapore Law Society who was in court in London had specifically informed the judges that the Singapore Attorney General was aware of the London hearing and did not wish to appear.
8. As to Jeyaretnam not showing "remorse repentance or contrition" how could a man show these feelings for a crime he did not commit!
9. I therefore wrote a letter to the Attorney General asking an explanation as to why he said this, under these circumstances.  His response to me was that he was not a party to the proceedings and that if I need answers I should contact JB Jeyaretnam. Not satisfied with his letter I wrote again pointing out what he was incorrect and that if he does not give me a satisfactory reply, I would publicize the correspondence. I then faxed the correspondence to every lawyer in Singapore.
10. He replied that he was reporting me to the Law Society of Singapore for misconduct. The Law Society filed a charge of "threatening" the Attorney General and another, "making false accusations against the Attorney General"
11. I denied the charges. The disciplinary inquiry against me took many days. Eventually the disciplinary hearing found me guilty. Under the procedures, the matter went before a 3 panel court in Singapore to look into the findings and to sentence me. One of the judges was GP Selvam. He ordered that I be suspended from practicing law in Singapore for 2 years. All I did was to write a letter to the Singapore Attorney General.
11. The Commonwealth Secretariat office will be able to obtain copies and transcripts of this case from the Singapore High Court. If the Secretariat needs me to forward them, I will try to locate them for forwarding. GP Selvam had acted completely without any integrity of decency when he suspended me for 2 years merely for writing to Singapore's Attorney General. It is obvious that when he did this, he was merely acting as Lee's tool to destroy and silence a government critic.  

I now come to another case that that was in the news about this judge once again misusing the law to serve the Lee Kuan Yew government by destroying political opponents. This was the case of Tang Liang Hong. The brief facts are as follows:

1. In 1997 Singapore held it's national parliamentary elections. One of the constituencies contested was Cheng San Constituency. The opposition candidate among others was Tang Liang Hong, a Singapore lawyer.
2. At this time it was well known that the entire Lee family including himself had purchased million dollar properties from a development called Jade Mansions. It was known that every member of his family including himself had received preferential discounts from the purchase price not given to the members of the public. Being Prime Minister and Senior Minister, it appeared as corruption or a form of corruption.
3. Tang Liang Hong spoke about this at one of the political rallies before the elections.
4. For having said this, Lee Kuan Yew and others of his family sued Tang Liang Hong for defamation of character. In Singapore it is well known that if he sues you, you know you have lost even before you step into the courtroom. Lee has never lost a case.
5. The man picked for the dirty job was the judge GP Selvam.
6. Just for mentioning this fact, Selvam found Tang guilty of a staggering damage award of $8.07 million Singapore dollars (at today’s exchange rate about US$7 million). What is even more incredible is that he seized not only all of Tang's assets, he also seized all his wife's assets even though she had nothing to do with it. William Saphire the journalist once described this as an "extortion racket". Tang and his wife now live in Melbourne Australia. He fled for his life.
7. There is ample evidence of this case in the public domain.

I would categorically state here that using this man to officiate over the inquiry of such great importance to the future of the Republic of Maldives, totally and permanently discredits the proceedings. GP Selvam is a person with a flawed character unsuitable and incapable of coming to any impartial decision.

He has shown himself to be a man who would do anything, however unconscionable to further his interests.

Furthermore, I am sure he is required under the rules to disclose any action in the past that may be derogatory against him. If he had failed to mention these cases, he has further incriminated himself by his failure to disclose, which he knew he was under an obligation so to do.

I strongly recommend that he be promptly removed from any office in these proceedings. I am going to publish this in my blog Singapore Dissident http://www.singaporedissident.blogspot.com/. This report in my blog will remain permanently in the Internet for all to see.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr Nair.
It is nice to see that you are using your blog to raise awareness of Singapore Kangaroo justice system and their corrupt guardians to international level.

I am sure the Commonwealth ill have other evidences of GP Selva as a less than suitable candidate for this Maldives job.

The more the Singapore govt tries to raise its profile aboard, the more dirty hidden skeletons will be brought out for airing.

Anonymous said...

Yes, people are reading... people who never knew many things before come to see the truth eventually...

Anonymous said...

the Old Goat brother has cashed in his chips, but the episode injustice survived.

The Hotel Properties Limited episode that sparked off a political storm in Singapore in 1996 has been buried alive by the PAP. But its ghost will continue to haunt those involved.

http://sgforums.com/forums/10/topics/127699

Anonymous said...

You have enligthened many readers of the dark side of Singapore law, from within. Well done.

Back in those days, Chinese lawyers are few and able to speak colonial language well. The Chinese supported LKY politically because he is a Chinese lawyer was hard to find in those days but never did our forefathers knew he will become a legal monster to crush and bite them back hard.

History of LKY will be rewritten and all the good things he had done will be forgotten. Read Holy Bible Ezekiel 3:19-21.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the Indian community in Maldive also need to know that Singapore is a money laundering centre according to an Indian Government White Paper.

PM Lee explains to Indian govt: Singapore has no interest in being a money-laundering centre

Posted by temasektimes on July 13, 2012

Minister Lee Hsien Loong has responded to allegations made by a White Paper published in India about Singapore being used as a conduit for round-tripping of Indian ‘black money’ into India.

The White Paper on ‘Black Money’ was tabled in the Indian Parliament on May 21 this year. For some strange reasons, the authors of the paper were not sued for defamation by PM Lee or the Singapore government.

Gopalan Nair said...

To Anonymous July 13, 0125,

The reason why the authors of the White Paper were not sued is because they are not in Singapore. The Lee ruling family only goes after people whom they could sue in their Singapore Kangaroo Courts. All the foreign newspapers that were sued were because they had offices in Singapore and wished to circulate their papers in Singapore. However you note that newspapers who have no interest in selling in Singapore were never sued no matter what they said, for example Asia Sentinel, a Hong Kong paper. Also it should be quite evident they are not suing me beccause I am in California. They know they won't win in a California court. There are no Kangaroo Judges here.

Anonymous said...

The Singapore government is brainwashing the population with 2 new dirty words "Integration" and "Open"

Chan Chun Sing: Singaporeans must remain ‘OPEN’ to people from ‘different’ backgrounds

Posted by temasektimes on July 16, 2012

‘Integration’ and ‘open’ are the two new PAP’s buzzwords as a third minister after Dr Ng Eng Hen and S Iswaran broached the topic again to Singaporeans over the weekends.

With social tensions between native Singaporeans and foreigners rising to an all-time high, PAP leaders have been exhorting Singaporeans to accept the newcomers (by hook or by crook) to keep the volatile situation under control.

Speaking during a community event yesterday, Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Chan Chun Sing said Singapore will be able to integrate new immigrants in the coming years, if it approaches integration with the same spirit it has approached racial harmony.

“That will require two hands to clap, it will require fellow Singaporeans to remain open to people from different backgrounds,” he added.

Singapore has become a ‘rojak’ country of late as the government OPENS its doors WIDE to accept foreigners from all over the world.

Though integration has now become impossible with too many immigrants being accepted within too short a period of time, Singaporeans are constantly exhorted to remain open and ‘integrate’ (or rather assimilate) with them.

Anonymous said...

The Singapore Kangaroo Courts is once again abused by the Singapore government to snuff out dissent and destroy the opponent(litigant).

This article was first published on publichouse.sg on Tuesday.

By Andrew Loh / Richard Wan

On Monday morning at the High Court, a representative from the Law Society of Singapore attempted to have lawyer Mr M Ravi disallowed from carrying out his legal duties in Court, Mr Ravi told publichouse.sg and TR Emeritus in an exclusive interview in the same afternoon.

Mr Ravi was acting on behalf of Mdm Vellama Marie Muthu in her case to request the Court to declare that the Prime Minister does not have unfettered discretion in deciding when to call by-elections.

Before the proceedings began in the morning, the representative from the Law Society, Mr Wong Siew Hong, had approached both senior counsel Mr David Chong, acting on behalf of the Attorney General, and Mr Ravi, outside the Court room. Apparently, Mr Wong had a copy of a letter from Mr Ravi’s psychiatrist, Dr Calvin Fones, which Dr Fones had earlier sent to the Law Society. The letter was shown to both Mr Chong and Mr Ravi.

In his letter, Dr Fones said: “I reviewed Mr Ravi on Saturday 14 May in my clinic following concerns expressed by his friends about his recent moods and behaviours.”

Mr Ravi has confirmed that the date – 14 May – is wrongly stated by Dr Fones. It should be 14 July instead.

to read on see http://sg.news.yahoo.com/doctor%E2%80%99s-letter-%E2%80%9Cridiculous%E2%80%9D--says-m-ravi-.html

IamMaldivian said...

Allegations are put forth against Mr. G. P Selvam by Ahmed Saeed and says he identified impartiality in drafting CoNI report. For more information: http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/44158