Court of Three Judges acquits MP Christopher de Souza of misconduct as a lawyer

SINGAPORE: The Court of Three Judges, the legal profession's highest disciplinary body, on Monday (Jul 31) acquitted Member of Parliament Christopher James de Souza of improper professional conduct as a lawyer.

The 47-year-old, who is also Deputy Speaker of Parliament, had earlier been found guilty by a disciplinary tribunal of helping a client suppress evidence from the court.

This was by preparing and filing a document that did not disclose the fact that his client had breached his undertakings to court by using confidential information and documents.

This information and documents were obtained due to search orders and were to be used only for a High Court suit, but the client instead used them to file police and other reports against parties the client was suing.

However, the Court of Three Judges on Monday said it was clear to them that Mr de Souza did not intend to suppress the breach.

The court, comprising Justice Belinda Ang, Justice Woo Bih Li and Justice Kannan Ramesh, said that the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) had not made out its charge against Mr de Souza.

Delivering the verdict, Justice Belinda Ang said the court found that "intention is a necessary ingredient of the charge".

Instead, the evidence at the time showed that Mr de Souza and his team at Lee & Lee had consistently urged the client to disclose the breach, said Justice Ang.

When Mr de Souza heard the verdict via the Zoom hearing on Monday, he appeared pleased. 

In a statement to CNA via his lawyers after the hearing, Mr de Souza said he was "naturally extremely pleased" to be vindicated after three years.

He said the allegations against him were "totally unfounded" and that he had acted with "the utmost integrity" at all times.

"Mr de Souza has always been mindful of his obligations as an officer of the court," said his lawyer, adding that Mr de Souza thanked his colleagues at Lee & Lee, friends and constituents for their "unstinting support and encouragement during this time".

LawSoc, which was represented by Mr Madan Assomull from Assomull & Partners, had sought a four-year suspension for Mr de Souza.

The society had raised five charges against Mr de Souza – a People's Action Party (PAP) MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC – but a disciplinary tribunal found him guilty of only one charge.

Mr de Souza, who was represented by Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng and Mr Calvin Ong Yik Lin from WongPartnership, with Senior Counsel Tan Tee Jim from Lee & Lee sitting in, urged the court to overturn the guilty finding on the one charge.

Mr Tan said the conduct of his client was "beyond reproach".

"He was mindful always of his obligations as an advocate and solicitor. Mr de Souza acted with integrity from the day he accepted the brief from Amber, and up till the day he discharged himself after finding out that Amber repeated its shenanigans," he said.

THE CASE

The case stems from when Mr de Souza was acting in his capacity as a partner of law firm Lee & Lee for Amber Compounding Pharmacy and Amber Laboratories in a High Court suit.

Amber was initially represented by law firm Dodwell & Co and was suing a former employee and her company for allegedly stealing trade secrets.

The Dodwell & Co lawyers were granted search orders to obtain documents and information from the defendants, with the express undertaking that Amber was not to use any of the information or documents obtained except for the court proceedings in the High Court suit. 

A total of 116,298 documents were seized in April 2018 under the search orders, and Amber breached its undertakings by making three reports in 2018 to the Ministry of Manpower, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and the Singapore Police Force, disclosing 10 documents.

This happened before Mr de Souza and Lee & Lee took over the case. They were approached in November 2018 to act for Amber over the reports made to the authorities.

Internal correspondence at Lee & Lee shows that Mr de Souza and his colleagues knew about the breach and had advised Amber to take immediate steps to remedy it.

However, the disciplinary tribunal found that Mr de Souza did not ensure that his client made full disclosure of the breach in a filing of an affidavit.

ARGUMENTS BEFORE THE COURT OF 3 JUDGES

The Court of Three Judges on Monday morning grilled both LawSoc's Mr Assomull as well as Mr de Souza's lead counsel, Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng.

They questioned Mr Assomull on the framing of the one charge Mr de Souza had been found guilty of, as well as on what LawSoc's precise case was as to Mr de Souza's intention to suppress evidence.

As for Mr Tan, the court asked him about how the affidavit was drafted. Mr Tan's case was that the affidavit did disclose the wrongdoing, and that it simply could have been drafted in a clearer manner.

Justice Woo told him candidly: "It's not as crystal clear as you're making it out to be ... otherwise, we don't have to be here today."

Mr Tan said he agreed that the affidavit could have been better drafted, but he asked whether the lack of clarity exhibited an intention to suppress evidence.

Mr Assomull had argued that internal correspondence at Lee & Lee showed that Mr de Souza was aware of the breach, as well as the importance of disclosing it.

To not do so clearly in the affidavit can only mean one thing, that he intended to suppress it, said Mr Assomull.

If the client had refused to agree to certain facts or wordings that a lawyer felt must be included in an affidavit, then the lawyer had to discharge themselves, said Mr Assomull.

"That is the paramount duty that every lawyer owes to the court," he said. "First the court - then the client. Not the client, then the court."

Mr Assomull said there was a "deliberate intention" to make the affidavit "vague", compared with the "reality of the situation".

He charged that the team of lawyers knew that if the line revealing the breach had been put in, their application "was doomed to fail".

Mr Assomull said the fact that the breach had not been disclosed cannot be attributed to "bad drafting" of the affidavit.

"If we take the position that a lawyer can get away with bad drafting ... we're going to have a (lot) of problems in the future," he said.

He questioned why an experienced lawyer like Mr de Souza, with another three lawyers behind him in his team, did not "come up with something better" in the drafting of the affidavit.

"What is the message that this court wants to send out to young lawyers, medium-sized lawyers and even senior lawyers? Is this really bad drafting? My submission is - it's not," said Mr Assomull.

In response, Mr Tan said that Mr de Souza did discharge himself in July 2019, after realising that the client had again used the seized documents despite his advice. 

"The immediate steps taken by Mr de Souza in consultation with Mr Tan Tee Jim was to discharge. He could not stand the nonsense of the client in breaching the undertaking," said Mr Tan.

"That cannot be the conduct of an officer of the court who wanted to suppress evidence," he added.

"If Mr de Souza's intention was to suppress evidence, why would he even make an application (to use the documents) and subsequently disclose to the court that his client had used the documents?" he asked, adding that the case had to be looked at holistically.

Justice Woo told Mr Tan that he hoped Mr de Souza and his team would "learn something from this" case.

After the hearing, a PAP spokesperson told CNA in a statement: "The party has always believed in the due process of law, and upholds the high standards of integrity expected of our MPs. We are very happy that the court has fully acquitted Mr Christopher de Souza."