The Best I Could (11 page)

I believe the changes in local criminal law have made things advantageous to the prosecution. Though there is a “presumption of innocence”, according to our Constitution, the man in the street cannot be blamed if he thinks that he has to prove his innocence in court. The law is lopsided. So many aspects of the criminal law are loaded against the accused. The Constitution says one thing but in practice, it’s different. The courts must also be blamed for this sad state of affairs. They rarely interpret the law in favour of the accused, though I feel things are slowly changing. One day, we may still have justice in the true sense of the word. Justice must be compassionate and it must be fair. It must endeavour to seek out the truth. It must balance the rights of the accused and the protection of society.

I argued the appeal of Tampines Raja in the Court of Criminal Appeal. The panel of judges comprised Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin, Justice Tan Ah Tah and Justice Freddy Chua. They were the most senior judges at the time. I was told I was the youngest lawyer to have ever appeared before the Court of Appeal. I was also told that Chief Justice Wee grilled the younger lawyers especially hard and I was prepared for the worst. That day in court, I was on my feet for nearly an hour; those 60 minutes were among the longest I’ve ever been through in court. Surprisingly though, the Chief Justice did not go after me. Instead Justice Tan, who was reputed for protecting young lawyers from the Chief Justice, gave me a hard time. Chief Justice Wee actually took pity on me and started to protect me from Justice Tan. It didn’t make a difference though. To crown my humiliation, the deputy public prosecutor was not even asked to answer my submission. The appeal was dismissed and the conviction was allowed to stand. Tampines Raja was one step closer to the gallows.

A few days later, the registrar of the Supreme Court phoned to tell me that I had been assigned to assist the solicitors in London to undertake my client’s appeal in the Privy Council. For a brief moment, I thought I would be sent to London. I was told later that the extent of my assistance was to send the Record of Appeal to London. I was merely a courier with a parcel to deliver to the post office. I got the Record of Appeal together and sent it to a large solicitor’s firm in London. I can’t recall the firm’s name, but it took on all the criminal appeals that went to the Privy Council for those who could not afford the fees. The accused has to swear that he has nothing “but the clothes he’s wearing”—
In Forma Pauperis
—this is the term used for it. When the firm received the Record of Appeal, they sent me a letter of acknowledgement and I heard nothing further.

A few weeks later, I had a collect call from London. The operator told me a solicitor from London wanted to speak to me and asked if I was prepared to pay for the call. I said yes, more out of curiosity than anything else. A man speaking the Queen’s English with a very condescending tone told me that a petition had been prepared by his firm for the Lordships of the Privy Council. He also said that their senior solicitor had decided to ignore my arguments as they were not well thought out and most probably doomed to failure. Instead, the senior solicitor had formulated his own arguments in the Petition of Appeal. I was shattered as I put down the phone. The solicitor at the other end seemed to want to continue the conversation but since I was paying for the call, I wanted to end it. What I heard was a disaster and I was not able to sleep that night. If my arguments were so lowly thought of, I could be responsible for the death of my client.

The next day, I confided these feelings to my elder sister. Being a doctor, she was more concerned about my health. She told me to forget the case. After some deliberation, I decided to call London and speak to the same solicitor. I asked him if his senior solicitor was a Queen’s Counsel. He told me that he was not. I then instructed him to get an opinion from a Queen’s Counsel. In a tone laced with sarcasm, he asked me who would pay the Queen’s Counsel’s fee. I said I would and asked him how much that would be. He said it would cost around £150 which was about S$1,200 in those days. It was a lot of money but I had to do it. He intimated that they would only instruct a Queen’s Counsel after receiving my money. So much for trust among fellow lawyers.

I remitted the fee the next day and heard nothing from London for two weeks. Then the same solicitor called me and, this time, it was not a collect call. When I spoke to him, I sensed that he was not so condescending any more. He told me that the Queen’s Counsel’s opinion was that my arguments were correct and he had amended the petition based on my arguments. I was overjoyed and relieved, but being the confrontational man that I was, I couldn’t resist asking him whether his senior solicitor was still in his chambers. His silence spoke volumes.

I was glad I had decided to spend the money. If I had not done it, I would have continued to blame myself for losing the case. Who knows, I might never have taken up another murder case. Still, the appeal was dismissed by the Privy Council. When I was informed of the verdict, I was not surprised. Some messes created in the lower courts cannot be undone.

I was then told by the registrar of the Supreme Court to file a petition for clemency on behalf of the accused. I managed to get a specimen copy from David Marshall’s clerk. I prepared the petition on behalf of my client and delivered it to the Istana. Benjamin Sheares was President at the time. My lawyer colleagues informed me that filing a clemency petition was a waste of time as the President, with the advice of the Cabinet and the Attorney-General, very rarely commuted a death sentence to life imprisonment. In subsequent years, I came to learn that this is true. Out of the multiple appeals I have done, only once was a sentence of death commuted to life.

For a country so small, Singapore has among the highest per-capita execution rates in the world, and the authorities have always been very cagey about executions. Under Section 216 of Singapore’s Criminal Procedure Code, it is noted that “when any person is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that he shall be hanged by the neck till he is dead but shall not state the place where nor the time when the sentence is to be carried out.” So, this uncertainty over executions is written into the law itself. A few months later, I received a letter from the President’s office stating that clemency was denied. Tampines Raja had exhausted his last chance. An execution is typically carried out within a week of rejection by the President.

I made one last trip to Changi Prison, the ‘condemned prison’, to see my client and to inform him of the President’s decision. I didn’t know he had already been told the news. When I met him, he was smiling and before I could say anything, he told me he knew and that it was alright. He had become a Christian and accepted his fate.

“I’m not afraid of death any more, Mr Subhas.” He spoke strongly about his faith and asked me if I would be angry if he told me he now believed in Jesus.

“Why should I be angry?” I replied.

“I thought you would be angry because you’re the president of the Hindu temple,” he explained.

“I could never be angry at someone changing his faith as long as he believes that what he’s doing is right.” I reminded him that Hinduism is a very liberal religion and Hindus are supposed to be tolerant.

He thanked me for all that I had done for him and assured me that his family would never blame me and that I should continue defending people with the same zeal I had shown in his case. He also told me that I was hot tempered and that I should try to control my temper. He laughed loudly as he said this, startling the prison guards who were present. “See what a hot temper has done to me,” Tampines Raja said. As I stood up to say my last farewell, he hugged me and said, “May Jesus Christ bless you and your family.”

I walked out of the prison with a heavy heart. Tampines Raja was a young man who had wasted his life over a silly argument. In fact, two young lives had been destroyed.
The Straits Times
announced shortly after my last meeting with Tampines Raja that he had been hanged. It was a tragic end to my first case, but I took consolation in the fact that I knew that it would be the start of an exciting career in criminal law for me. Tampines Raja’s faith in me gave me the confidence I needed.

This look at my early years would not be complete without including the time I spent in prison. It was a dark period for me. Throughout my life, I had been among the prime movers in many escapades and incidents, but my incarceration in Queenstown Remand Prison brought me back to earth. More importantly, it gave me a chance to rediscover who I really was as I gradually adjusted to life in prison.

My troubles began innocently enough at a temple called the Holy Sri Balasubramaniar Temple, which was then located at Canberra Road within the Naval Base. The temple was founded by a man called P Karupiah who worked at the British Royal Navy Dockyard. He dreamt one night of a very powerful golden cobra living in a tree in the Base. On the basis of this dream, some Hindus got together and built a small shed for the deity Murugan in the vicinity of the tree. Murugan is the God of War and the patron deity of Tamil Land. According to Tamil devotional literature, Murugan never hesitates to come to the aid of a devotee when called upon in piety or distress. A bigger building was constructed on the site when more and more devotees visited the temple. Naturally, a committee was elected to run it.

At that time, in 1972, the president of the committee was S Saravanan, an elder in our community. He had been president for almost 10 years. He was not popular with the younger generation of devotees because of the heavy-handed way he ran the temple. It was not unusual for the older generation to pursue matters relating to the temple without involving the younger devotees. But there were more immediate problems.

After I was called to the Bar, my childhood friend Sam, who was a committee member of the temple, approached me to discuss issues related to the rules and regulations of the temple. He needed my help to amend some parts of the temple’s constitution. At the time, the committee was also having a problem with the Hindu Endowment Board. A member of parliament, N Govindasamy, had insisted that the temple join the Hindu Endowment Board but the committee was not keen to do so. I helped Sam draft some amendments to the constitution and to the rules. I also drafted a letter on behalf of the temple stating that we declined to come under the umbrella of the Hindu Endowment Board. The letter was practically a challenge to MP Govindasamy to show which part of the law required our temple to come under the board. That ended the matter.

Later that year, when my family had already moved to Kampung Wak Hassan, Sam visited us. He wanted me to attend the temple’s annual general meeting. It was fixed for a Sunday and my appointment as the temple’s legal advisor had to be formalised at the AGM. I told him: “There’s no need for me to be present. Why don’t you just ask the members to endorse it.” Sunday was the only day in the week I could sleep in and the meeting was at 9.00 o’clock in the morning.

My mother overhead our conversation and said: “Can’t you sacrifice just one Sunday for your temple? For God? Why don’t you go to the AGM and get formally appointed?”

I turned to Sam. “Ok, then, I’ll go to the meeting.”

On that particular Sunday, there was a huge crowd at the temple, both young and old. Many were old friends and some were my father’s friends. My father was also there.

Sam said to me: “Hey, the person who’s supposed to stand for president against Mr Saravanan is unable to make it as something more urgent required his attention. Could you please contest the election? We don’t want Mr Saravanan to be president of the temple committee again, and we just need you to contest and hold the position for a short period until we find someone to take over from you.”

Many of our friends were there, and they were hoping that I would show my support and accept their proposal. After much coaxing from them, I agreed to contest the election. There were only two candidates: myself and the incumbent. The candidates were told to leave the hall and by a show of hands, I was elected president. The other candidate got only one vote—my father’s.

My father was angry at the way his good friend Mr Saravanan had been humiliated. They had worked together for about 30 years in the Base and he was of the opinion that no one should be humiliated in that way. Even my father’s friends had voted for me because I was his son. I had the support of both the older and younger generations. I accepted my victory with mixed feelings as I could understand my father’s point of view.

My father proposed the defeated candidate as vice-president. Not wanting to hurt my father’s feelings, no one objected and S Saravanan was elected unopposed. I realised, to my horror, that I could not resign. If I did, the former president would, under the temple’s constitution, succeed me. I had no choice but to continue. When I got back home, my mother had a broad smile on her face. She had heard about my win and, to her, being president of a temple was a great honour.

After growing up among mostly Chinese boys, I found that the temple exposed me to the Indian community. I received great support. Youngsters came in numbers to help us change the face of the temple. We expanded its premises and it was common to see us digging the soil even after midnight. New friends like Dasa, Soman, Bhasi, Velayuthan, Puru, Vincent and many others were pillars of support and strength. Temple work brought me tremendous joy. I had to pull people from different factions of the community into the temple and unite them. I also became religious in the process.

Unfortunately, there was also a lot of politics to deal with at the temple. You can please people most of the time but sometimes what you do is never enough. There was at least one group of devotees who were not happy with what was happening. They became even unhappier when they saw that the temple was prospering under my leadership. However, they couldn’t do anything about it and I was re-elected in 1973. In 1975, I decided that Sam, who had by then been vice-president for two years, should be the president. The election was contested and he won.