Appointment of Hri Kumar as Deputy Attorney-General 'not ideal’: Sylvia Lim
Workers’ Party Member of Parliament Sylvia Lim has voiced concerns over former PAP MP Hri Kumar Nair’s appointment as Deputy Attorney-General, calling it ‘not ideal’.
On Thursday (16 Feb), the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) announced that the former MP had been appointed as a Deputy Attorney-General for a term of three years with effect from 1 March 2017.
Hri Kumar is the first former politician to be appointed to this role.
In a Facebook post on 16 Feb, Lim said, “I was asked by a local paper whether I had any concerns about partisanship, given that Mr Kumar was such a strong critic of AHPETC, our WP-run Town Council.
“I gave my response as follows (which I was just told would not be published due to lack of space): ‘It is critical that persons entrusted with vast prosecutorial discretion act in the public interest, and not for partisan political gain. The appointment of a former PAP MP to such a post is not ideal. Whether my concerns prove to be founded or otherwise – remains to be seen.”
Hri Kumar is a director at Drew and Napier and has more than 25 years of experience as a lawyer, the announcement on the PMO’s website said. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2008 and was a Member of Parliament for the Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC from 2006 to 2015, but did not contest in the 2015 General Elections after his wife contracted lymphoma.
