Lawyer who commented on molest victim’s breast size suspended for 5 years
A lawyer who commented on the breast size and looks of a molest victim during a trial has been suspended from practising for five years by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday (2 May).
The suspension term is the maximum a lawyer can be given under the Legal Profession Act.
In reaching the decision against Edmund Wong Sin Yee, who is in his late 50s, a panel of three judges of appeal took into account the lawyer’s multiple offences previously. Wong was also ordered to pay $5,000 in costs. As a result of the suspension, Wong will have to fold his own firm, S Y Wong Law Chambers.
Reading out the brief grounds of judgment, Chief Justice (CJ) Sundaresh Menon said Wong “embarked on a line of cross examination to humiliate the victim and subject her to treatment that is wholly demeaning”. It was “disgraceful” and an “abuse of privilege” given to a lawyer to cross examine in court, CJ added.
Wong made the inappropriate comments during a 2016 hearing into a molest case in the State Courts. While defending his 24-year-old client, Xu Jiadong, he had asked the 22-year-old victim to stand up and questioned her about her breast size during his cross-examination of the victim.
When questioned then by District Judge Shawn Ho on why Wong had done so, the lawyer said he wanted to see how “attractive the victim is when she stands up”. The victim protested and asked if it was necessary for her to do so.
Calling Wong’s conduct “needlessly offensive”, DJ Ho criticised the lawyer for his line of defence, which included showing that there would be a higher tendency for an offence to be committed against the victim if she had a “very voluptuous breast protruding out”.
His comments spurred the Attorney-General’s Chambers to file a complaint to the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) against him after Xu was found guilty on 3 August 2016.
For Wong’s misbehavior during the molest trial, the LawSoc, represented by Rethnam Chandra Mohan, asked for the lawyer to be suspended between 12 and 18 months on Wednesday.
Wong’s conduct, Chandra said, was a breach under a section of the Legal Profession Act which constituted “grossly improper conduct in the discharge of (Wong’s) professional duty”.
Chandra added that “serious questions arise to whether (Wong) is fit to practise” given his previous offences. These include the lawyer being suspended from practice for two years in July 2003 for road rage. Wong was also ordered by a disciplinary tribunal to pay $3,000 for using expletives in another trial in 2016.
Lawyers Eugene Thuraisingam and Suang Wijaya, who were acting for Wong, asked for a three-month suspension.
Thuraisingam said that Wong intended to advance a line of argument which he “honestly and reasonably considered to be legally relevant to his client’s defence”. Wong meant to elicit a response from the victim to say that she was not pretty, said Thuraisingam.
“That’s a tool of cross examination. There are different styles in cross examination, one way to elicit what you want is to put witness in false sense of security,” he added.
However the panel of judges dismissed the lawyer’s argument, pointing out that the victim’s attractiveness was irrelevant. CJ Menon asked, “Are we in the business of a beauty contest?”
The panel reiterated the point in its grounds of decision. “Beauty is completely subjective. It was irrelevant how pretty the victim was when the only issue was if the offender committed the crime,” said CJ Menon.
“It was cruel and humiliating to suggest to the victim that she was attractive to scrutinise her to the point she felt uncomfortable and offended, only to say that she was unattractive and that her testimony could not be believed.”
The panel said that in arriving at the suspension term for Wong, it considered his long list of antecedents, including violent conduct, abuse of public servants, drug consumption, and “a pattern of vulgar and lewd language” used as recently as 2015.
“Wong has no meaningful appreciation of the appropriate manner of which an advocate or solicitor should conduct himself, whether this is in court or outside court…or even in his personal dealings,” said CJ Menon.
“It is extremely difficult to reform one who does not appreciate the error of his ways,” he added.
However, the panel noted that some of his violent offences were dated, and hence it did not strike Wong off the roll.
Wong, who was not present in court, was given two weeks to wind down his business before his suspension takes effect. When asked about his absence, Wijaya declined to comment.
His lawyers initially asked for Wong to be given two months to wind down his business.
