The other occasion was in April 1990, when Vimi was pregnant with our son. He was going to be born in June. I had pain in the bladder due to some stones. I went to Singapore General Hospital. They gave me an epidural and removed the stones. It’s not really a complicated procedure and I was supposed to go home the next day, but that evening I was screaming in pain. I was drinking so much water! The doctor touched my stomach, which had become tender and very painful. My blood pressure was also going up very high. The doctors were all worried that my heart would give up, and they said that I had to go for surgery. My elder sister called the head of the hospital who came and spoke to me. She said that there was a good chance I wouldn’t recover from the surgery with my heart and blood pressure in that condition, but still the surgery had to be done. I said OK.
My friends were there at that time. I remember telling them that I didn’t want my son to grow up without the love of a father. I told them that they would be my replacement and would have to help me look after him, if I passed on. I told Vimi that I was not ready to go yet, but if I did, she did not have to worry as everything would be taken care of. The only thing was that I would be sad that I was unable to see my son before passing on.
The anaesthetist in charge of my procedure was my sister’s good friend. She made the decision that the surgeon had to put some machine into my body. She said that my lungs would never clear unless the machine was put in. She told me that there was a 50 per cent chance that I might die in the operating theatre, but that she would do everything possible to keep me alive, including using a ventilator. She told the surgeon that she would take full responsibility if anything happened to me. She then came to my room, held my hand and asked me if I was a risk taker. I said yes, and I would follow her advice and go through with it. In the end, I didn’t even have to use the ventilator. I survived, my blood pressure went down, and I could go home after I was discharged. You see, what I learnt is that you have to take risks and have faith sometimes.
Al-Mizan: Many people see you as a fighter. You have fought hard, not only for your survival through such experiences but also for the underdogs in society, for accused persons who would have had the benefit of legal representation otherwise. Have you made many enemies in the process?
Subhas: To me it doesn’t matter if you make enemies because of your profession or the principle you believe in. If an underdog deserves a defence, I will give it. Even if an accused person has committed heinous offences, I will represent him. If I make people angry in the process, so be it. I have received death threats and people telling me they will kill me so many times. People even ring up my secretary and tell her to tell the boss that he will die. At the end of the day, as Gandhi said, only the strong can forgive. I don’t hold grudges against people. Those days are gone. I am strong and have forgiven them. But just because I have forgiven them doesn’t mean that I have to be associated with them. We each lead our own lives.
Al-Mizan: You have been in practice for over 40 years now. When you first started, what kind of goals did you set for yourself? How do you view these goals today?
Subhas: I was called to the bar in January 1971. I had many idealistic goals then and I carried these goals from university into practice. I was the secretary-general of the Socialist Club in university. I was questioned in a Select Committee Hearing about my socialist activities, and they even called me a pro-communist. I said no, I was a leftist. I believed that everybody is equal and I guess many things were in a way similar to communist ideals.
When I started practice, people like me wanted to make right what we thought was wrong through law. But after a few years, we found out that our ideals and what we saw in real life were two very different things. It is all well and good to be an idealist, but you have to be practical. If you think about it, what we were advocating was actually not fair; as it was tantamount to saying that the person who doesn’t work is entitled to take from a rich person who is working hard. The equal distribution of wealth cannot be fair if each person is not pulling his weight. We were not in Camelot any more. Not many goals could be achieved. But what was fair was that we managed to help a lot of people who couldn’t afford lawyers. We gave them a chance and we fought for the amendment of laws which we thought were unfair.
All my life, I have been fighting for fair and equitable criminal justice. As time went on, I felt that the law was so lopsided. The prosecution had all the advantages such that, sometimes, I feel that on the side of the defence, we are fighting blindfolded. Of course, things have changed since I started practice. Many of us advocated for amendments to make certain things fairer. To a certain degree, I am proud to say we succeeded. The Criminal Procedure Code was amended. The Penal Code has also changed. It may not have levelled the playing field, but some amendment is better than none. Of course, more can be done, and there will be changes for the better hopefully.
One of the most important things that I have always hoped to see is the abolishment of the mandatory death penalty. Don’t get me wrong. I am not against the death penalty. In fact I do believe it is necessary for certain offences. I have been criticised for saying that, but it is my belief. When you rape and kill a young girl, or cause women or children to die, for certain offences, why should society keep you in jail and feed you? But in my opinion, the death penalty should not be mandatory. Let the judge decide. The judge is well-placed and more than capable to make the decision whether a person deserves the death penalty. Let the judge have the discretion. Another thing I truly hope to see in my lifetime is for every accused person to be accompanied by a competent lawyer in court, whether he can afford it or not.
Al-Mizan: Did you ever consider entering politics?
Subhas: I was interested in politics at one time. Like I said, we were so idealistic after university and thought we would change the world. Unfortunately for me, I was not a citizen then. I was born in India and came to Singapore when I was five months old. I was stateless till 2001. I had to travel with a certificate of identity. If I wanted to go to Johor, I had to get a visa from the Indian High Commission. There was a fear that I would be deported to India when I was in university.
I applied for citizenship in 1972 after I graduated. I was rejected for 10 years. A few years later, I applied again but this time there was no reply at all. I took it that I wouldn’t be getting citizenship. Then out of the blue, they called me when the newspapers reported in 2001 that I was given the Legal Eagle of The Year award by the Law Society. I think the reporter had indicated in the last paragraph that I was still not a citizen of Singapore. Maybe the authorities decided that I should be a citizen after that! They called me up and gave me citizenship soon after. I was given a passport and finally became a citizen in 2002.
Al-Mizan: If you had been a Singapore citizen in 1971, would you have entered politics?
Subhas: Yes, and I would have entered the Opposition. I’ve always spoken my mind, without fear, against or for the government’s policies. I believe that in order for Singapore to flourish, we must be fair and unbiased when we judge policies. If a policy is correct, support it. If it is wrong, speak out against it. But don’t blindly oppose any policy just because you support a particular political party. We must do our part and engage constructively and positively for the good of our nation.
Al-Mizan: When you first started practice, you ran your own firm. Since then, you have worked with many different big firms.What are your thoughts on practising in such different working environments?
Subhas: My happiest moments in practice were when I was running my own firm. I could make my own decisions and work at my own convenience. It was very flexible. Then I formed a partnership with MPD Nair; that was good because he left everything to me as it was just us two lawyers. But of course, when more people joined, things became more complicated. Partners are different human beings with different priorities. That’s when I realised a partnership is really not easy.
At that time, Harry Elias Partnership decided to start the
ir own criminal law department. Back then, the larger firms began to form criminal law departments simply because of this: if their corporate client knew a layperson in trouble, and there was nobody in the big firms to do the criminal work, the big firms would have to refer work to the smaller firms; but in the process they risk losing their business. I was asked to join Harry Elias. I was quite tired of running the partnership, so I agreed and went in as a consultant. It was quite refreshing because I didn’t have to worry about things like rental and the salaries of my staff. I was there for seven years.
After that, I joined KhattarWong as they were also setting up a criminal department. From there, I joined RHT Taylor Wessing, my present firm. They have been extremely nice and understanding to me, especially considering the state of my health for the past year.
If I could start all over again, I would probably want to be in a small firm for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
Al-Mizan: You have done so much pro bono services in all your years of practice. Please share with us what pro bono was like when you first started and how things have changed since then.
Subhas: Back then, there was no system or programme, unlike how it is now. Each lawyer provided his own pro bono services; we each did not know what the other was doing.
I guess the closest there was to a system was the assigning of capital cases to lawyers in the High Court. That time, there was a register of lawyers, and everybody took turns to do it. Of course, some lawyers who did not practise criminal law would find it difficult. I remember there was a problem when a lawyer did not present the capital case he had been assigned well because the last criminal case he did was probably a bicycle theft 20 years earlier. He tried to tell that to the Registrar, but the Registrar insisted that he had to deal with the case. This was reported in the papers. After that, the system changed and the register only contained names of people who practised criminal law. The chances of criminal law practitioners getting assigned such cases increased but we never complained. We felt it was something we had to do, something we could give, like doing National Service maybe.
Pro bono services now is very different from what it was when I started in practice. I was from a kampong in Sembawang. People were poor and could not afford to pay school fees and their children had many problems. I couldn’t say no to them due to the kampong spirit. We all helped our neighbours, we had a sense of duty to help anyone who was in trouble. We understood each other’s problems better because we came from the same kampong — it was nothing but genuine compassion. Some of them committed offences not because they wanted to but because they had no choice. They were so poor that they had to steal. They were not hardcore criminals. I tried to help them. They were extremely grateful. Some of them gave my mother gifts such as chickens and eggs. That is how I started my pro bono work to help others some 40 odd years ago.
When we formed the Association of Criminal Lawyers of Singapore (ACLS) in 2004, our main aim was to provide a lot of pro bono services, which we did and continue to do. Our members offer their services quietly and purely for the satisfaction they get from knowing that they are helping somebody in need. They personally don’t gain anything and they don’t want to gain anything — that’s the real value of pro bono. You need to help others without any expectations.
The state of pro bono now is different. The word itself has lost its meaning. Now, there are plans to give some money to lawyers who volunteer to assist. To me, even if you take $5 or $500, it is not pro bono already because you are being paid something. In ACLS we will continue to help people who need our assistance without any expectation of payment. We do it because we want to do it, without any need for publicity or any ulterior motives.
Al-Mizan: Recently, there has been much discussion in the law fraternity to make pro bono mandatory for all lawyers. The Committee to Study Community Legal Services Initiatives has recommended mandatory reporting of pro bono hours as a start. What are your views?
Subhas: I have said before that I disagree with this. Pro bono must come from the heart. When people are forced to do pro bono work, it is no longer pro bono. When it is mandatory, some goodwill is taken away and it is difficult to tell who is doing it because of compassion, and who is doing it because he is forced to do it or because he is given some allowance. When you force a lawyer to do a pro bono case, he may not do a reasonably good job because he doesn’t like it or isn’t used to it. As for the reporting of pro bono hours, there will be difficulties in monitoring and verifying it. The system may lead to abuse. At the end of the day, to me, pro bono must be done with compassion and from the heart, and not through any mandatory policy.
Al-Mizan: Of late, many people refer to the practice of criminal law and family law as community law. Many lawyers nowadays are reluctant to practise in these areas of law as they feel that these areas may not be financially lucrative as corporate or commercial law. As a criminal law practitioner, what do you think of this?
Subhas: Of course, an average criminal lawyer would not make as much money as an average corporate lawyer. That has always been the case. However, at the end of the day, it is simply a matter of priorities and satisfaction.
Through criminal law, I get satisfaction, albeit in a different way. When I go to hawker centres, many people come up to me, talk to me and ask about my well-being. When I was very sick, people I didn’t even know told me that they were praying for me. Their concern deeply touched me, and to me this is the type of compensation that I get for practising in my field. There are different types of compensation for different fields of law. You can’t have everything.
Financially, I am lucky as criminal law has made me neither poor nor rich. I am doing okay. Criminal law has given me a good income and satisfaction which I might not have obtained from practising other areas of law.
Al-Mizan: After so many years of practice, you must have made many meaningful friendships with your fellow lawyers. Share with our readers some interesting stories about these friendships.
Subhas: There are so many stories. For example, I have known Noor Marican from the time he started practice in 1975 and we have been good friends for such a long time. We have stood by each other and are both fiercely loyal to one another. He does a lot for ACLS because of his genuine compassion for pro bono work and also, I believe, because of our friendship. We are in fact more like brothers and our relationship is something not easy to find. Even if he becomes some important figure one day, I know that I can always ask him to come over for coffee.
People call him Sammy Davis Jr. because of their resemblance. Once, there was a show; the artiste who was emceeing the show said that she had brought her good friend, Sammy Davis Jr., to attend the show. Everybody clapped happily when the friend appeared, thinking he was Sammy Davis Jr. But it was actually Noor Marican. That was very funny.
He has a wry sense of humour. He is one person who will speak the truth, even if that will cause him to make enemies. To me, that is a virtue I respect. He was always been there for me amidst my many challenges and battles.
Al-Mizan: What is your advice for young lawyers today?
Subhas: Law is a difficult profession. You must learn to handle other people’s problems very fast. If you are doing criminal law, somebody’s life is in your hands and you have to be very disciplined. When you take on a case, whether civil or criminal, you must give 100 per cent, so much so that even when you lose, your conscience is clear and you know that you have done everything possible. If you want to do criminal law, you must have the compassion for it. If you don’t have that, it will be very difficult. Young lawyers must accept hard work and not try to cut corners. They should respect the seniors in the profession, be disciplined and competent. When you go to court, be prepared. No judge likes to see an ill prepared lawyer. You must always remind yourselves not to be arrogant just because you have a law degree. To be a good lawyer, you must be honest with yourself. Let your conscience be your guide and you will be all right.
Al-Mizan: On a
similar note, personally, do you want your son Sujesh to go down the same route that you have taken?
Subhas: Honestly speaking, I want my son to be a good human. Whether he is a good lawyer or doctor doesn’t matter to me. He must have time for people who are not as fortunate as him. I hope he will show the same type of compassion that I have shown to the people who are in trouble. Be helpful, not arrogant. Be there for people. That’s all I want him to be.
THIRTY-FOUR
LAST WORDS
I have reached the end of my book. I have said what I have wanted to say without hesitation. I am not going to be very popular with some people. I have to accept the consequences when I have been candid. It really doesn’t matter what people think of me. It matters more what you think of yourself. Can you cope with your own hazy conscience or do you cope with some of the things you did very cowardly?
I have been asked to give lectures by institutions. I will accept some and I think my topic this time will be “Never give up”, because I feel the younger ones especially tend to give up too easily today. Remember that some of the battles that you fight are never fought alone. There’s always family and good friends who will be rooting for you and giving you all the moral support that you need. So never give up. If I had given up, I would not be writing this book. I would have just allowed myself to wallow in self-pity and the rest of the days of my life would amount to nought. I didn’t give up simply because I felt that I had a lot more on my plate and I needed to reflect on my life. I wanted to spend more time with my close friends and family. I felt that there were many things that I had to do which I did not.
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