Lack of integrity and honesty are exactly the qualities what Piss And Poop is looking for.
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Do you have trust in the Singapore legal system?
- Thread starter LITTLEREDDOT
- Start date
The Accused, despite having been disbarred, did manage, through instructing another law firm, obtained a default judgment of $45,000 for the victim. Okay, he may not have informed the victim about enforcing the judgment. But the victim did NOT lose anything. The judgment is valid for 10 years.
The law firm handling the case would have had particulars of the victim's Company, and through a simple ACRA search, the particulars of the 59-year old victim who is the Director of the victim's Company. The law firm would have had given copies of the correspondence, including the judgment to the business address of the victim.
Did the law firm know the Accused did not have a valid practicing certificate or that he had been disbarred ? Does it even matter ?
Anybody can draft an affidavit. After all, affidavit belongs to the witness and has to be signed by the witness and witnessed in front of the Commissioner of Oath. There is nothing wrong with a disbarred lawyer preparing an affidavit. It's just like an insurance agent drafting a Will for his client.
The law firm handling the case would have had particulars of the victim's Company, and through a simple ACRA search, the particulars of the 59-year old victim who is the Director of the victim's Company. The law firm would have had given copies of the correspondence, including the judgment to the business address of the victim.
Did the law firm know the Accused did not have a valid practicing certificate or that he had been disbarred ? Does it even matter ?
Anybody can draft an affidavit. After all, affidavit belongs to the witness and has to be signed by the witness and witnessed in front of the Commissioner of Oath. There is nothing wrong with a disbarred lawyer preparing an affidavit. It's just like an insurance agent drafting a Will for his client.
I know.
My point is does it even matter that he had been disbarred ? The important question is did he hold himself out as a practicing lawyer ?
You mean once a lawyer has been disbarred or does not possess a practicing certificate, he cannot touch any "legal works" ? But insurance agent drafting Wills for their clients not considered legal works meh ? And drafting an affidavit is exclusively the job of the lawyer meh ?
Disbarred lawyers still can work as in house counsel in a company. I know Tan Cheng Yew is doing very well now as an in house lawyer.
Precisely.
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Ask me this question again after the outcome of the S Iswaran corruption case.
I recall that 6 Keppel O&M employees were given stern warnings over bribes that totalled $73 million, but a forklift operator was imprisoned for accepting bribes of 10 cents to $1 from drivers. Hahaha!
Woody Goh declared that any person earning less than $1 million per year is "mediocre" so his son must have taken this to heart and did what he had to do to try to earn at least $1 million annually.Ask this question again after the outcome of Wooden Goh son case.
Elderly woman wins case to cancel transfer of $7.8m shophouse; lawyer’s conduct under scrutiny
The Emerald Hill property was bought by Madam Ho Dat Khoon's father in 1970 and registered in her name. PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Selina Lum
Senior Law Correspondent
Aug 31, 2024
SINGAPORE - An 84-year-old woman who signed away an Emerald Hill shophouse to her grandniece eight years ago has won a court battle to cancel the transfer and regain ownership of the property.
The shophouse, estimated to be worth up to $7.8 million, is the only property Madam Ho Dat Khoon has in her name.
The Appellate Division of the High Court, which ruled in Madam Ho’s favour, has also expressed concern over the conduct of the lawyer who had acted for her in 2016.
The court has referred the conduct of Mr David Liew to the Law Society of Singapore, for an inquiry into whether he had acted in Madam Ho’s best interest in the entire process leading to the transfer.
In written grounds of decision on Aug 28, the court said: “We were of the view that the plaintiff did not understand the nature and effect of the transfer. In particular, Mr Liew’s conduct in acting for the plaintiff caused us concern as to whether Mr Liew had acted in the best interest of the plaintiff.”
The court comprised Justices Woo Bih Li, Kannan Ramesh and Philip Jeyaretnam.
The shophouse was purchased by Madam Ho’s father, Mr Ho Kwang Ming, and registered in her name in 1970. Mr Ho died that year at the age of 71. He had five other children apart from Madam Ho.
On Dec 2, 2016, when Madam Ho was 76 years old, she signed a will leaving the shophouse to her grandniece, Ms Wong Cai Juan. On the same day, Madam Ho also signed a document to transfer the property to Ms Wong. The transfer was registered in 2017.
Ms Wong is the daughter of Madam Ho’s nephew, Mr Alan Wong, and his wife, Madam Chan Wai Leen. Mr Alan Wong’s mother was Madam Ho’s sister. He died in 2015.
On April 30, 2020, two children of another of Madam Ho’s siblings were granted power of attorney to act on her behalf. Mr Ho Chiuen Sheey and Ms Nicola Ho – whose father was Madam Ho’s brother – were given powers to take legal action in relation to the property.
A High Court suit was filed on Nov 13, 2020, against Madam Chan and Ms Wong.
The defendants had argued that the property was a gift, and that it was to be held in trust for the family of Madam Ho’s sister Ho Tat Noor, who is Mr Wong’s mother.
The suit claimed that the transfer should be invalidated, as Madam Ho did not intend to give the property to Ms Chan within her lifetime. It did not seek to invalidate the will.
The defendants argued that Madam Ho had always intended to give the property to her sister’s family.
In November 2023, a High Court judge concluded that when Madam Ho signed the transfer document, she had mistakenly believed that she was bequeathing the property to Ms Wong, and did not understand it meant she would lose ownership of the property during her lifetime.
Justice Aedit Abdullah ordered the cancellation of the registration of the transfer as well as the rectification of the land register to reflect Madam Ho as the property owner.
The judge also ordered Madam Chan and Ms Wong to pay Madam Ho $360,000 to cover her legal costs and $123,019.17 in disbursements.
Madam Chan and Ms Wong then appealed. The Appellate Division of the High Court dismissed the appeal and ordered the defendants to pay a further $52,000 in costs to Madam Ho.
In its written grounds, the court said it had doubts whether Mr Liew had properly taken Madam Ho’s instructions in relation to the will and the transfer. Madam Chan was the one who contacted Mr Liew’s office, the court noted.
Mr Liew then purportedly spoke to Madam Ho on the phone in a mixture of Cantonese and Mandarin. He later prepared a draft will, which Madam Chan collected from his office.
Mr Liew was then told by his secretary that Madam Ho had approved the draft. He did not confirm this with Madam Ho in person or over the phone.
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On Dec 2, 2016, Mr Liew met Madam Ho near the flower shop where she worked. He said he went through the documents with her before she signed them. There was no attendance note of this meeting.
The court said at no point in time did Mr Liew ascertain with Madam Ho whether she had other relatives and why she was giving the property only to Ms Wong.
“Neither did he advise her on the prudence of such a course of action and the likelihood or possibility that it might invite litigation from other relatives,” said the court.
Lawyer struck off rolls for not declaring plagiarism committed as undergrad
The striking-off was handed down to Ms Jill Phua by the Court of Three Judges, which is the highest disciplinary body for the legal profession. PHOTO: ST FILE
Selina Lum
Senior Law Correspondent
Aug 07, 2024
SINGAPORE – A lawyer has been struck off the rolls for failing to declare in her 2023 Bar admission application that she had committed plagiarism while she was an undergraduate at the Singapore Management University (SMU).
The striking-off was handed down to Ms Jill Phua on Aug 6 by the Court of Three Judges. It is the highest disciplinary body for the legal profession and has the power to suspend or disbar lawyers.
The court also stipulated that Ms Phua cannot apply to be reinstated as a lawyer for at least 2½ years.
In 2020, Ms Phua was a second-year law student when she was caught for plagiarism after she submitted a research paper for a module that she was taking.
An assistant professor who reviewed her paper and a report by anti-plagiarism software Turnitin asked her to explain why several paragraphs of her paper appeared to have been lifted from other sources without attribution.
Ms Phua replied that in the process of transferring the points collated from her research on a separate document over to the final draft, she transferred paragraphs that were unedited instead of the edited paragraphs.
She was officially reprimanded by SMU for plagiarism, and her grade for the paper was reduced to zero.
In January 2023, Ms Phua filed her application to be admitted as a lawyer without declaring this incident in her supporting affidavits.
She was admitted to the Bar on July 12, 2023.
The Attorney-General subsequently learnt that there were SMU students who had committed plagiarism for the module, but who may not have made the necessary declarations in their admission affidavits.
On March 14, 2024, after being informed by SMU that Ms Phua was one of the students, the Attorney-General applied to the court for her to be struck off.
The Attorney-General, the Law Society and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education are the stakeholders involved in the admission of lawyers.
On Aug 6, Deputy Senior State Counsel Sarah Shi from the Attorney-General’s Chambers argued that a striking-off was an automatic consequence under the Legal Profession Act, as Ms Phua’s affidavits contained a substantially false statement and suppressed a material fact.
Ms Shi asked the court to set a minimum interval of three years before Ms Phua can apply for reinstatement, citing a past case where a lawyer was struck off for not declaring that she committed plagiarism during a take-home examination.
The state counsel said three years would be the appropriate duration to enable Ms Phua to rehabilitate herself.
Ms Phua, who was represented by Mr Shashi Nathan, did not contest the striking-off application, but sought a shorter reinstatement interval.
Mr Nathan said: “She accepts that she deserves to be disbarred, and she is making every effort to rehabilitate herself.”
The court, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Justices Tay Yong Kwang and Andrew Phang, imposed a minimum interval of 2½ years.
The court said a reduction from the duration sought by the Attorney-General was appropriate on account of the fact that Ms Phua had voluntarily withdrawn her application for a practising certificate.
The judges also recognised the progress she has made in her rehabilitation, and noted that she did not raise a fight in this case.
Last week, students from all three law schools in Singapore took a pledge for the first time to uphold the values of the legal profession.
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