Pritam Singh in court: Who are the lawyers leading both sides of his case?

SINGAPORE: Over the last week, a packed courtroom watched as Workers' Party (WP) secretary-general Pritam Singh went on trial for two charges accusing him of lying before a Committee of Privileges.

While Singh is a lawyer himself, he has chosen another lawyer, Andre Darius Jumabhoy, to defend him against charges that are believed to be Singapore's first prosecution under the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act.

With Mr Jumabhoy is lawyer Aristotle Emmanuel Eng Zhen Yang, who is from the same boutique law firm named after Mr Jumabhoy. 

Against them is a prosecution team led by Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock, formerly a High Court judge himself. He is joined by Deputy Public Prosecutors Sivakumar Ramasamy, Tan Ben Mathias – both of whom took turns questioning the witnesses – and Lu Huiyi. 

Singh, 48, is accused of making two lies before the Committee of Privileges on Dec 10 and Dec 15, 2021, during events after former WP member Raeesah Khan told a false anecdote in parliament on Aug 3, 2021. 

Five days of trial have gone by, with both sides completing their questioning of two prosecution witnesses – Ms Khan and former WP cadre Loh Pei Ying, who was Ms Khan's close confidante in the matter.

As the trial enters its sixth day, Mr Jumabhoy conducts his cross-examination of the third prosecution witness, former WP cadre Yudhishthra Nathan. The lawyer has garnered attention for his forceful cross-examination of witnesses, including when he called Ms Khan a "liar" who told "lies nonstop". 

Mr Jumabhoy – a former Deputy Public Prosecutor with the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) – also butted heads with Mr Ang over aspects of his applications at various points during the trial. 

Mr Ang has argued against Mr Jumabhoy's repeated impeachment applications, contending that impeachment was not a process gone into lightly, and that the defence had not raised material inconsistencies that went to the crux of the charge. 

CNA looks at the careers of the two lawyers leading up to the current case. 

PROSECUTOR A FORMER HIGH COURT JUDGE

On the prosecution's end, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock received his Bachelor of Laws from the National University of Singapore in 1995 and was called to the bar the next year.

In the following years, he worked in the Supreme Court as a Justices’ Law Clerk before obtaining a Master of Laws from Yale Law School in 1998. 

In 1999, Mr Ang joined heavyweight law firm Allen & Gledhill and became partner the next year. His areas of practice were in civil and commercial litigation, and international arbitration disputes, among others. 

Mr Ang became one of the youngest to be appointed Senior Counsel in 2009, at 38 years old.

In 2018, Mr Ang was appointed Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court and was elevated to High Court judge in 2019. 

As High Court judge, Mr Ang has ruled in prominent cases, including the first challenge against correction directions issued under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA). 

This was an appeal mounted by Singapore Democratic Party against correction directions by the manpower minister over statements made in an article on the opposition party's website and two Facebook posts.

Mr Ang found that there was proper basis for all three correction directions and did not accept secretary-general Chee Soon Juan's arguments. 

He also found that the government bore the burden of proof, meaning that the government should prove the falseness of a statement when corrections orders are challenged in court.

The Court of Appeal later overturned part of a correction direction, but upheld two other correction directions and the other part of the third correction direction.

Mr Ang has also been part of broader reforms to Singapore’s civil justice system. He was a member of the Ministry of Law's Civil Justice Review Committee and the chair of the New Rules of Court Implementation Team.

Mr Ang was appointed Deputy Attorney-General and assumed office on Oct 1, 2022. 

DEFENCE LAWYER A FORMER PROSECUTOR 

Mr Jumabhoy is a seasoned lawyer who started his legal career in 2003 as a barrister in London after obtaining his Bachelor of Law from Kings College London the year before. 

In London, Mr Jumabhoy defended in jury trials across a range of criminal offences, including murder, armed robbery, rape and high-value fraud.

He returned to Singapore in 2011 and joined the AGC as a Deputy Public Prosecutor. 

He was first posted to the capital crimes team to prosecute crimes such as murder and drug trafficking. 

While in this team, he prosecuted the case of a former shipyard worker who brutally stabbed a Filipino woman to death. The accused in this case, Bijukumar Remadevi Nair Gopinathan, was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. 

Mr Jumabhoy moved on to prosecute financial crimes in 2012. One of his most notable prosecutions was the high-profile "sex-for-grades" trial in 2013, where former law professor Tey Tsun Hang was accused of corruptly receiving gifts and sex from an ex-student. 

Mr Tey was convicted of his charges but later acquitted in a surprising reverse upon appeal – after already serving five months in prison. 

Mr Jumabhoy was promoted to Deputy Senior State Counsel in 2014. In the same year, he prosecuted former National Parks Board officer Bernard Lim Yong Soon, who was convicted of giving false information to auditors from the Ministry of National Development over a deal to buy 26 Brompton bikes.

The judge in that case imposed a fine on Mr Lim, against the prosecution's proposed sentence of three to four months' jail.

Mr Jumabhoy's LinkedIn profile states he was at AGC until 2016 before doing a two-year stint at law firm KL & Gates.

He joined another law firm, Peter Low & Choo, in 2018 as a director. While there, he and a colleague argued the appeal of a drug trafficker, which later became a landmark case for setting out the prosecution’s disclosure obligations.

The accused person, Muhammad Nabill Mohd Fuad, was convicted in the High Court in 2018 on charges of possessing heroin and cannabis for trafficking and sentenced to death. 

At appeal, the apex court ultimately convicted Nabill on a reduced charge and sentenced him to eight years for drug possession. 

Mr Jumabhoy left Peter Low & Choo and started his eponymous firm in 2022, where he is the managing director.