Getting Called: A Practical Guide - SSRN papers

Getting Called: A Practical Guide Jack Lee Tsen-Ta I. INTRODUCTION1 Of the persons seeking admission to the Bar each year, the majority are fresh graduates from the National University of Singapore and institutions of higher learning in England and other Commonwealth jurisdictions. For them, the process of getting called to the Bar will probably be the first time they will have to prepare and file court documents. It is a daunting prospect. This article seeks to smooth the process for these persons by serving as a practical guide to the relevant aspects of civil procedure and practice. II. QUALIFICATIONS The power to issue a licence to practice law was conferred on the Court of Judicature at the time of its inception in 18262, and qualifications for those seeking to be called to the Bar appeared as early as 18733. Since then, increasingly stringent qualifications have been imposed on persons seeking admission to the Singapore Bar. At present, the following requirements must generally be satisfied:4 i. You must be a ‘qualified person’. ii. You must have attained the age of 21 years. iii. You must be of good character.5 iv. You must have satisfactorily served the prescribed period of pupillage.6

Jack Lee Tsen-Ta, LLB (NUS), Advocate and Solicitor, Singapore. 1

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4 5 6

For general works on this topic, see Tan Yock Lin, The Law of Advocates and Solicitors in Singapore and West Malaysia (1991) at 1-43; and The Pupillage Handbook (Jeremiah Choy ed, 2nd ed, 1992) which is available free of charge from the Law Society of Singapore. Note, however, the major changes to the Legal Profession Act which are discussed in this article. Second Charter of Justice 1826, at 32: see Tan Yock Lin, ibid at 4. On the history and development of the legal profession in England and Singapore, see Tan Yock Lin, ibid at 1-5; and Wee Chong Jin, ‘The Legal Profession in Singapore—Past, Present and Future’ [1980] 2 MLJ Ivii. Ordinance No V of 1873 (‘An Ordinance for Amending the Law relating to the Constitution of the Civil and Criminal Courts of the Colony’). Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 1994 Ed) (‘LPA’), ss 11(1 )(a), 12(1). Infra, n 75 and the accompanying text. Infra, nn 30-42 and the accompanying text. 455

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You must have attended the Postgraduate Practical Course in Law (more commonly known as the Practice Law Course or PLC) organised by the Board of Legal Education (BLE),7 and have passed the prescribed examinations.

The term ‘qualified person’ is defined in s 2(1) of the Legal Profession Act as amended in 1993. In a speech to the Law Society of Singapore on 17 October 1992,8 Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong expressed the Government’s concern at the current rate of growth of lawyers in Singapore. In the Government’s view, if the current rate was left unchecked, it would eventually lead to an excessive supply of legal services. This might mean that some Singaporeans whose talents were better suited to providing services in other sectors of the economy would be unnecessarily diverted into the legal profession. He also characterised legal services as wealth-redistributing rather than wealth-creating,9 and opined that an oversupply of lawyers might lead to an over-litigious society, as well as a lowering of the standards of professional conduct and the quality of legal services.10 A Committee on the Supply of Lawyers chaired by Attorney-General Chan Sek Keong was appointed in September 1992 to consider the issue of the supply of lawyers for Singapore in the short to medium term. It rendered a report in April 199311 recommending measures to progressively limit the number of persons entering the profession. The Government accepted the report and in November enacted the Legal Profession (Amendment) Act 1993 (No 41 of 1993).12 Subsidiary legislation to implement these measures took effect from 4 February 1994 in the form of the Legal Profession (Qualified Persons) Rules

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Legal Profession Rules (Cap 161, 1996 Ed, R3) (’LPR’), r 11(1). ‘Speech by the Prime Minister Mr Goh Chok Tong, at the Law Society of Singapore Annual Dinner and Dance, at Orchard Ballroom, Level 3, Orchard Hotel, on Saturday, 17 October 1992, at 8:00 pm’, Singapore Government Press Release No 25/OCTOBER 02-1/02/10/17. See ‘The Invisible Foot and the Waste of Nations: Lawyers as Negative Externalities’ in Stephen P Magee, William A Brock & Leslie Young, Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Theory: Political Economy in General Equilibrium (1989); ‘How Many Lawyers Ruin an Economy?’, The Wall Street Journal, 24 September 1992; ‘America’s Parasite Economy’, The Economist, 10 October 1992. Contrast C Ebb & Mark Galanter ‘Let’s Not Kill All the Lawyers’, The Wall Street Journal, 9 July 1992; and Frank Cross, ‘The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Economists’ (1992) 70 Texas LR 645. Committee on the Supply of Lawyers, Report on the Legal Profession (1993) at paras 2.1-2.8. Ibid. See Singapore Parliamentary Debates Official Report, vol 61, 12 November 1993, cols 1160-81, especially the statement of the Minister for Law Prof S Jayakumar during the Second Reading of the Legal Profession (Amendment) Bill at cols 116063.

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(Cap 161, 1995 Ed, R15). As a result of the 1993 amendments, you are considered a qualified person if you fall within one of the following categories:

i. Graduates from the National University of Singapore (NUS). You are a qualified person if you either passed the final examination for the degree of Bachelor of Laws in the NUS or its predecessor institutions before 1 May 1993,13 or were admitted as a candidate for the degree before this date and subsequently passed the final examination.14 Those who are admitted as candidates for the degree on or after 1 May 1993 and subsequently pass the final examination must attain at least a lower second class honours to be qualified persons.15 ii. Graduates from universities in the United Kingdom. You are a qualified person if: (a) prior to 1 May 1993 you were, and still are, a barrister or solicitor in England or a holder of an equivalent qualification from Scotland or Northern Ireland;16 (b) you were admitted as a candidate for your degree before 1 May 1993, were conferred your degree after that date, and subsequently became a barrister or solicitor in England or a holder of an equivalent qualification from Scotland or Northern Ireland, or obtained a Diploma in Singapore Law;17 or (c) you were admitted as a candidate on or after 1 May 1993, commenced reading your course before 1 January 1994, were conferred your degree before 1 January 1997 and subsequently became a barrister or solicitor in England or a holder of an equivalent qualification from Scotland or Northern Ireland, or obtained a Diploma in Singapore Law.18 (d) If you satisfy the requirements in sub-para (c), but commenced reading your course on or after 1 January 1994, to be a qualified person your degree must have been conferred by one of the institutions of higher learning listed in the First Schedule to the Legal Profession (Qualified Persons) Rules. The 15 institutions currently listed are the universities of Birmingham; Bristol; Cambridge; Durham; Exeter; Leeds; Leicester; London (King’s College, London School of Economics and Political Science, Queen Mary and Westfield College, and University College); Manchester;

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LPA,s2(l)(a)(i). LPA, s 2( 1)( b) and the Legal Profession (Qualified Persons) Rules (Cap 161, 1995 Ed, R15)(‘LPQPR’),r4. LPA, s 2( 1 )(b) and LPQPR, r 5. LPA, ss2(l)(a)(ii)and(iii). LPA, s 2( 1 )(b) and LPQPR, r 7. LPA, s 2( 1 )(b) and LPQPR, r 8( 1).

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Nottingham; Oxford and Southampton.19 (e) If you were conferred your degree by one of the universities listed in the First Schedule on or after 1 January 1997, you need not qualify as a barrister or solicitor in England or obtain an equivalent qualification from Scotland or Northern Ireland, but must have obtained at least an upper second class honours degree and a Diploma in Singapore Law.20 External law degree holders who were conferred their degrees on or after 1 January 1996 are no longer be considered qualified persons.21 iii. Graduates from universities in other Commonwealth countries. You are a qualified person if prior to 1 May 1993 you were conferred a degree by one of the institutions of higher learning under the gazetted Commonwealth universities scheme,22 or if you commenced a course of study in one of those universities before 1 January 1994 and were subsequently conferred a degree.23 The gazetted universities are Monash University (Australia); University of Melbourne (Australia); University of Sydney (Australia); University of Hong Kong; University of Malaya; University of Auckland (New Zealand); Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand); Osgoode Hall, University of York (Canada); and the University of Toronto (Canada).24 As the gazetted Commonwealth universities scheme has since been abolished, those who commence their courses of study in gazetted universities on or after 1 January 1994 will not be considered qualified persons.25 The Minister of Law may, after consultation with the BLE, exempt any person or class of persons from any of the above provisions.26 In addition, the BLE may in exceptional cases exercise its discretion to approve any person as a qualified person if he or she is not otherwise entitled to become one. Such a person must in the opinion of the BLE possess such qualifications or expertise as would enhance the quality of legal services in Singapore. The BLE’s decision is final and cannot be appealed nor reviewed in any court.27 An interesting historical footnote: being a man is no longer a relevant qualification for being called to the Bar. Section 11(3) of the Legal Profession Act expressly states: ‘A person shall not be disqualified by sex from being

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LPA, s 2(1 )(b) and LPQPR, r 8(2)(i). LPA, s 2(1)(b) and LPQPR, r 8(2)(ii). LPQPR, r 9. LPA, s2(l)(a)(iv). LPA, s 2( 1 )(b) and LPQPR, r 11 (1). See the Legal Profession (Recognition of Foreign Qualifications) (Consolidation) Notification (Cap 161, 1990 Ed, Nl), and the Second Schedule to the LPQPR. LPQPR, r 11. LPQPR, r 12. LPA, s 7.

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admitted and enrolled as an advocate and solicitor.’ Prior to 1919, a woman could not be admitted as a student of an Inn of Court in England.28 This necessarily prevented women from being called to the Singapore Bar, since an English qualification was a prerequisite. Although the disparity in England was removed by s 1 of the English Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, lingering uncertainty prompted the Straits Settlements Legislative Council to enact what is now s 11(3) by way of the Courts (Amendment) Ordinance 1927 (No 6 of 1927). Said the Attorney-General during the First Reading of the Bill: Sir, doubts have arisen as to whether the provisions of Ordinance No 101 (Courts) can be construed so as to enable a woman to be admitted and enrolled as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court. A petition by a lady, who has been called to the Bar by the Inner Temple, has been filed and in due course it will come up for hearing, I think, in the month of June. The object of this Bill is to remove the doubts to which I have referred by specifically enacting that sex shall not disqualify a person from such admission and enrolment.29

The Ordinance came into force on 10 June 1927, no doubt just in time for the pioneering woman. Regretfully, her identity remains a mystery. III. PAPERS TO BE PREPARED ON COMMENCING PUPILLAGE A. Pupillage

Pupillage is the six-month period30 of apprenticeship during which a qualified person is attached to a law firm to receive instruction and gain experience in every type of work normally undertaken by an advocate and solicitor and to become acquainted with the laws and general rules of practice and procedure applicable to the legal profession in Singapore.31 It is the equivalent of what is known as ‘articles’ or ‘chambering’ in other jurisdictions. 28 29

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3( 1) Halsbury‘s Laws (4th ed reissue, 1989) para 373, n 1. Straits Settlements Legislative Council Proceedings, 1 Feb 1927 at B10: see microfiche SE102 v 1927 no 413, available in the Reprographic Department of the Central Library, NUS. After the Bill was read a second time on 21 March 1927, the Legislative Council resolved itself into committee and considered the Bill clause by clause. No amendments were made; the Bill was read for a third time and passed on 16 May 1927: microfiche SE102 v 1927 no 414 at B43, B67. The text of the Bill appears in the Straits Settlements Government Gazette, 4 February 1927 at 184. LPA, s 13(2). For qualified persons who have joined the Legal Service, six months of pupillage with a legal officer counts as one month’s pupillage with an advocate and solicitor: LPA, s 14(2). Therefore, pupillage for those in the Legal Service effectively lasts three years. The ‘six-equals-one’ rule also applies when pupillage is partly served with an advocate and solicitor, and partly with a legal officer. Note also that the BLE has a discretion to exempt a qualified person from a maximum of three months’ pupillage if certain conditions are satisfied: s 14(5). At the end of pupillage, pupil masters are required to certify that their pupils have achieved this: see para 4 of the Certificate of Diligence (LPR, Form G).

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Qualified persons are called pupils while serving pupillage, and the lawyers with whom they serve are known as masters.32 A pupil master must be an advocate and solicitor in active practice in Singapore of not less than five years standing who has been in practice or been a legal officer for not less than five out of the seven years immediately preceding the date when his or her pupil has commenced pupillage.33 To be in ‘active practice’, advocates and solicitors must possess valid practising certificates for the entire period. In Re Shamshuddhuha bin Ishak,34 the Malaysian Bar Council and Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee objected to a petition on the basis that the petitioner’s master did not have a valid practising certificate for 1994 or, in other words, for 2 months and 16 days of his pupil’s period of pupillage. The court upheld the objection. However, the petition was not struck out because the objecting parties had not sought such an order and would not object if the petitioner read in the chambers of a qualified pupil master for the outstanding period. There must also be some substantial connection between pupil masters and the firms at which they practise. Therefore, in Re Joseph Lai Khee Sin,35 where pupillage was served with an advocate and solicitor who was neither a partner nor a legal assistant but acted only as a consultant in a law firm, the court held that the connection between the consultant and the firm was too tenuous to satisfy the requirements of the statute. It is necessary to apply to the Board of Legal Education (BLE) for permission to serve pupillage.36 This may be done before you actually begin serving pupillage, or shortly afterwards. Application forms are available from the BLE. You should note the following when completing the form:

i. Qualification. You are required to enclose a certified true copy of the qualification which entitles you to serve pupillage.37 This should be your Bachelor of Laws degree, Diploma in Singapore Law and/or your instrument of admission to the Bar in England or other applicable jurisdictions. NUS graduates and Diploma in Singapore Law holders who have not been conferred their scrolls may enclose a copy of their results slips for the final examination. ii. Date qualified. The date when you become a qualified person is the date when the detailed results of the final examination leading to your qualification are released. Once the results are out and you have passed, you are deemed to be a qualified person even though you will not be conferred your degree scroll till several months later. In Re Lim Lip

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Regardless, it seems, of the lawyer’s sex: LPA, s 13(1). LPA, s14(l)(a). [1994] 3 MLJ 1 (HC, Kuala Lumpur) (judgment delivered in Malay). [1961] MLJ 265 (HC, Kuala Lumpur). Tan Yock Lin, supra, n 1 at 16, feels that the case would probably be decided in the same manner today. LPR, r 12. LPR,rl2(l)(a).

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Sze,38 the applicant commenced pupillage after passing his law examinations but before being conferred his degree. He applied to have the period spent reading in chambers prior to receiving his degree taken into account for the purposes of pupillage. The court held that this period should count towards the applicant’s pupillage because after passing his examinations he had attained his academic qualification in law. In the absence of an express provision in the Sarawak Advocates Ordinance, the applicant should not be penalized for having taken the initiative to read in chambers once the result of his examination was announced and he was successful, but for the formal conferment of the degree upon him at a convocation ceremony. iii. Section of LPA applied. You should indicate the sub-section of s 2(1) of the Legal Profession Act which applies to you. For instance, persons who were admitted as candidates by the NUS on or after 1 May 1993 and who subsequently passed the final examination with at least a lower second class honours will fall under s 2(l)(b) read with r 5 of the Legal Profession (Qualified Persons) Rules. These persons should write ‘Section 2(l)(b)’ on their application forms. iv. Full name of master; name of firm. You are required to state the full name of your pupil master and the name of the firm at which you will be serving pupillage.39 v. Effective date of pupillage. You must also state the date on which you propose to start pupillage. This date is generally a matter of arrangement between yourself and the law firm.40 However, bear in mind that if you begin pupillage too late you may not be able to complete it in time for the annual mass call to the Bar. Usually, the mass call for NUS graduates and Diploma in Singapore Law holders is held in May of the following year, while for members of the English Bar or holders of equivalent qualifications it is held in July. As one must be a qualified person to serve pupillage, the earliest possible date for NUS graduates to start pupillage is the day when the detailed results of the final-year law examination are released by the university. If all is in order, the BLE will send you a letter of approval and request a pupillage registration fee of $100.41 Retain this letter as you will need to attach it to your petition to be admitted to the Bar. The Legal Profession Act does not say whether pupillage must be served in one continuous period. In practice, many pupils take time off after the end of 38 39 40

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[1995] 2 MLJ 559 (HC, Kuching). LPR, r l2(l)(b). Ibid. It is submitted that it is unlikely that pupillage begins on the date on which a petitioner files his notice of petition for admission, as Tan Yock Lin suggests: supra, n 1 at 22. LPR, r 12(3).

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the PLC before resuming pupillage. According to The Pupillage Handbook 42 pupillage need not be completed in one unbroken period but prior approval should be obtained from the BLE before pupillage is interrupted. The sixmonth period of pupillage should generally be completed within the space of a year, but this is not an inflexible rule and each case will be considered on its own merits. B. Petition and notice After obtaining permission from the BLE to commence pupillage, the next step is to prepare your petition for admission as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court43 and your notice of petition,44 and to make copies of the approval letter from the BLE. These three documents must be filed at least six months before the call date, because this is the minimum period that the notice must be posted on the Supreme Court notice board.45 Unfortunately, if you intend to be admitted at a mass call there is no way to determine at this stage exactly what the call date will be. Mass call dates are set to accommodate the bulk of petitioners in a particular year, and the Supreme Court can only do this once it becomes evident when most petitioners are completing their pupillage. However, past practice provides a rough estimate: the mass call for NUS graduates and Diploma in Singapore Law holders is usually held in May, while for members of the English Bar it is held in July. In any case, to avoid being out of time you should file your petition, notice and approval letter as early as possible. The form of the petition is prescribed in Form B of the Legal Profession Rules (Cap 161,1996 Ed, R3). As different versions of this form are prescribed depending on your qualification and the date you attained it, ensure that you use the right one. You may prepare your petition with a word-processing program based on the example in the Legal Profession Rules, or purchase a pre-printed set from the BLE and type in the required information using a typewriter. While most of the text of the petition is standard, certain blanks need to be filled in. For assistance, look at the footnotes to the forms in the Legal Profession Rules. Note in particular the following:

i. ii.

42 43 44 45 46

Title: NRIC number. In the title of the petition, remember to state your NR 1C number in parentheses after your full name, like this: '(NRICNo7039913Z)’.46 Paragraph 2: qualifications. (a) Date of admission as candidate for degree. The Legal

Supra, n 1 at 17. LPA, s 17(2). LPA, s 17(3). Ibid. Supreme Court Practice Directions, paras 8(1), 8(6).

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Profession (Qualified Persons) Rules defines the date on which a person is admitted as a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Laws by the NUS or an institution of higher learning in the United Kingdom or elsewhere as the ‘date on which he secures a place as a candidate for that degree’ .47 This presumably means the date you are informed by your university that you are accepted for a course of legal study, not the date when the first academic year actually begins. This is especially important for men who have served full-time national service. Such persons usually apply for places in the NUS and overseas universities two years before their first academic year. In its Report on the Legal Profession, the Committee on the Supply of Lawyers stated that its recommendations aimed at regulating entry to the profession, which were later incorporated into the Legal Profession (Qualified Persons) Rules, ‘do not apply to students (including national servicemen) who have been accepted for or embarked on a course of legal studies in the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore or any overseas university prior to the date of the acceptance by the Government of this Report [ie April 1993].’48 Men who have served full-time national service should therefore state as their date of admission the date of the letter notifying them that a university place has been reserved for them. To confirm your admission date, write to the registrar of your university for a letter certifying when you were reserved a place for your course and when you commenced and graduated from the course. Retain this letter as you may need to exhibit it to the affidavit verifying your petition.49 Date when degree is conferred/date of obtaining diploma in Singapore law/date when final examination passed. Indicate the date when the detailed results of the final examination leading to the qualification are released by the institution administering the examination. Date of becoming a barrister or solicitor of England or obtaining an equivalent qualification in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Indicate the date on which your petition to be called to the Bar in England or its equivalent in Scotland or Northern Ireland was heard and granted.

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LPQPR, r 3.

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Report on the Legal Profession, supra, n Error! Bookmark not defined, at ii. See also the Singapore Parliamentary Debates Official Report, supra, n Error! Bookmark not defined, at col 1162.

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See Pt IVB of this article, infra.

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Paragraph 4: service of pupillage. Remember to omit or strike out the correct paragraph. v. Affidavit. One part of your petition requires you to swear or affirm50 an affidavit declaring that the contents of your petition are true. You do so by signing and dating one copy of the affidavit in the presence of a Commissioner for Oaths. The Commissioner will then sign in the appropriate space and affix his or her stamp on the affidavit. You are required to swear or affirm your affidavit before a Commissioner for Oaths who is not from your pupillage firm.51 vi. Address for service. You have to indicate an address where correspondence and documents from the Registry of the Supreme Court, Attorney-General’s Chambers, BLE and Law Society of Singapore may be served on you. It is customary to indicate the name and address of the law firm where you are serving pupillage. vii. Backing sheet. Paragraph 57 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions requires you to state on the bottom right-hand corner of the backing sheet of the petition the name, address, telephone number and fax number of your law firm, and a file reference number. You may either create your own file reference (eg JL.misc 96) or omit it.

iv.

You will also have to prepare a notice of petition in Form D of the Legal Profession Rules which states that you have filed a petition at the Registry of the Supreme Court to be admitted as an advocate and solicitor. Its purpose is to notify the public of your intention to be called and to enable any person who objects to enter a caveat against your admission.52 As mentioned above, the notice must be posted at the notice board of the Supreme Court by the Registry for at least six months before you are admitted. The notice board is outside the Bar Room in the Supreme Court Building. You need to produce five copies of your petition and notice: one copy for filing in court, one personal copy, and three copies for serving on the AttorneyGeneral’s Chambers, BLE and Law Society. There are two ways to prepare multiple copies of court documents for filing and serving. The first way is to make copies only when they are needed. For instance, when filing your petition, first prepare one original copy and swear or affirm the affidavit before a Commissioner for Oaths. Then photocopy the petition and file both the original and duplicate in court. When the duplicate has been returned to you as your personal copy, make photocopies of it for serving on the interested 50

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All persons are required to take oaths unless they are Hindu, Muslim or of some other religion according to which oaths are not of binding force, or have a conscientious objection to taking oaths. Such persons should make an affirmation instead: Oaths Act (Cap 211, 1985 Rev Ed), s 5. In practice, oaths are only taken by persons professing the Christian faith. Order41 r 8 of the Rules of Court. It is customary for Commissioners for Oaths to waive their oaths fees when attesting to call papers, but do ask if a fee will be charged. LPA, s 20.

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parties. You need not use this method if you have purchased a pre-printed set of call papers from the BLE since the required number of blank forms is already available in the set. The second way is to prepare the required number of copies in blank at one go and to fill in by hand all the information which is on the original but not on the personal and service copies. For instance, you will have to write on the personal and service copies of your petition the name of the Commissioner for Oaths (‘Sgd [Signed| XYZ’), all dates, and your Admission of Advocates and Solicitors (AAS) Number. Unless otherwise stated, the rest of this article assumes that you are using the second method. You are now ready to file your first set of papers in the Registry of the Supreme Court. Write the filing date on the backing sheet of your petition, and on the bottom left-hand corner of the notice which reads, ‘Received and posted on the Notice Board of the Supreme Court on [date].’ 53 Then take the petition and notice to be stamped at the Supreme Court stamp office (in the City Hall Building). At the stamp office, fill in a form for Requisition for Impressed Stamps and pay the appropriate amount. 54 One copy each of your petition and notice will be affixed with a computer-printed stamp. Finally, file two copies of your petition (one being the stamped copy), notice and approval letter by handing them to the staff at the Summons-in-Chambers Counter (Counter 6) of Registry 1 in the City Hall Building. You should bring along your original approval letter for verification. Your personal copy of the petition and notice should be ready for collection within one or two days from the same counter of Registry 1. Take the petition to the sealing counter to have the seal of the Supreme Court embossed on it. The notice should not be sealed. The last step at this stage is to serve copies of your papers on the other interested parties to your petition: the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society of Singapore.55 Your papers must be personally served56 within five days of filing.57 Before serving your papers, ensure that you have done the following to all the three remaining service copies:

i. ii.

53

54

55 56

57

Filled in the AAS number which would have been written by the Registry on your personal copy of the petition. Filled in the date of filing on the backing sheets of the petitions, and on the bottom left-hand corner of the notice.

Although it is possible for the date of filing of the notice and the date when it is posted on the Supreme Court notice board to differ, in practice the notice is invariably posted on the notice board on the day of filing. Order 91 r 1 specifies that certain fixed fees to be paid for filing documents in court. See Appendix B to this article for a complete list of the stamp fees payable for call papers. LPA, s 19(1). Order 10 r 5 read with r 1. See also LPA, s 133(1). ‘Any document other than process of court that is required to be served or delivered under this Act may be sent by post.’ [Emphasis added.) LPA, s 19(1).

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Signed and dated the petition and notice. Indicated that the affidavit included in the petition has been sworn or affirmed before a Commissioner for Oaths by writing ‘Sgd XYZ’, where XYZ is the full name of the Commissioner. Stamped ‘LS’ on the top left-hand corner of the petition under the Admission of Advocates and Solicitors Number. ‘LS’ stands for locus sigillis, Latin for ‘the place of the seal’; it shows that you have had your personal copy of the petition sealed with the Seal of the Supreme Court.

Personal service is usually effected in this manner: bring both your personal copy and service copy of your papers to the party on which service is to be effected, hand over the service copy, and have the receptionist affix the party’s official stamp on the backing sheet of your personal copy and sign and date it. After you have completed service on all three parties, the backing sheet of your copy of the petition should bear stamps from the Attorney-General, the BLE, and the Law Society. C. Correcting errors in the petition Before filing your petition you should, of course, check it scrupulously to ensure that you have not made any errors such as cancelling or omitting the wrong paragraphs, filling in the wrong dates or failing to date the petition. However, slip-ups can and do happen. To correct them, follow the procedure below:

i. ii.

iii.

Apply to court by way of summons-in-chambers for leave to amend the error or errors in your petition.58 On the hearing date of the application, have a solicitor from your pupillage firm attend the hearing to make the application. After the application is granted, file the amended petition. Serve copies of the amended petition on the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society.

As amendments, no matter when they are made, take effect from the date when the petition was originally filed, amendments can be made any time before the hearing of the petition.59 58

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Order 20 r 5 read with r 7 provides that leave of court is required to amend a petition. The procedure governing summonses-in-chambers is laid down in O 32. The Supreme Court Practice 1997, Vol 1, para 20/5-8/2: ‘An amendment duly made, with or without leave, takes effect, not from the date when the amendment is made, but from the date of the original document which it amends; and this rule applies to every successive amendment of whatever nature and at whatever stage the amendment is made.’ Compare Sneade v Wotherton, etc [1904] 1 KB 295 at 297: ‘[T]he writ as amended becomes the origin of the action, and the claim thereon endorsed is substituted for the claim originally endorsed.’ This was applied in the

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1. Preparing and filing the application You will need to prepare a summons-in-chambers and a supporting affidavit pointing out the errors. (See Appendix A, Forms 2 and 3.) You must attach to the summons a draft copy of your petition amended in red.60 Amendments are effected in this manner: retype your petition, including both the incorrect and amended parts. Then, using a red pen, strike out the incorrect parts and underline the amendments, like this: ‘17 April May 1997’. Insertions can simply be underlined. If you have inserted a whole paragraph, instead of underlining the entire passage you may draw a vertical line to the left of the paragraph in the margin. Note the following consequential amendments which you must also make:

i.

Endorsement. You should endorse the following text to the left of the title of your affidavit:

ii. iii.

Title. Amend the title to read: ‘The Amended Petition of [full name]’. Date. Under the original date of the petition, add the following: ‘ReDated this [date].’ Affidavit. After the court has granted leave to amend the petition, the affidavit at the end of the petition must be resworn or reaffirmed before a Commissioner for Oaths. The jurat in the draft amended petition should therefore read: ‘RESWORN [or REAFFIRMED, as the case may be] at Singapore this [date].’ Backing sheet. The title of the document should be ‘AMENDED PETITION’, and under the original filing date you should add: ‘Refiled this day of 1997.’

iv.

v.

You should prepare one copy each of the summons (including a draft amended petition) and your affidavit.61 Bring the summons and affidavit to the Attorney-

60

61

local case of Sio Koon Lin & Anor v SB Mehra [1981)1 MLJ 225 (FC, Malaysia). Red is used for a first amendment. Subsequent sets of amendments should be effected in green, violet and yellow: Jeffrey Pinsler, Civil Procedure (1994) at 2778. The form of affidavits is regulated by Pt IV of the Supreme Court Practice Directions.

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General’s Chambers, BLE and Law Society, and ask a solicitor from each party to signify that party’s consent to your application by signing in the appropriate space on all copies of the summons. It is a good practice to also prepare and hand to the parties a letter informing them of your intention to amend the petition and to formally seek their consent. You are now ready to file your summons in court. Make one photocopy of the summons and four of the affidavit. Keep one copy of the affidavit as your personal copy. Then stamp the original affidavit and summons, and take the summons to Counter 6 of Supreme Court Registry 1 to have a Summons-inChambers Entered Number written on your summons. The next step is to get a hearing date for your application to amend the petition. If you discovered the error well before the call date, you may simply file the original and duplicate copies of the summons and the original affidavit at Counter 6. The duplicate copy of the summons will be available for collection at Registry 1 after a few days. This is your personal copy. A hearing date about two to three weeks from the filing date will have been written on the summons. However, if you need to correct an error in your petition without delay, on the day of filing you may ask a solicitor from your firm to appear before the Duty Registrar to request for an urgent hearing date.62 Once the Duty Registrar has granted an urgent hearing date, you may file the summons and affidavit, obtain your personal copy of the summons on the spot, and have it sealed at the sealing counter. After obtaining your copy of the summons from the Registry, you may proceed to serve the summons and affidavits on the interested parties. Make three more photocopies of the summons, stamp ‘LS’ on them, and serve them together with three copies of your affidavit on the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society. 2. Hearing of the application Before the day of the hearing, it is customary to contact the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society and offer to mention the matter on their behalf at the hearing. This means that the solicitor from your firm attending the hearing will inform the Assistant Registrar hearing the application that they consent to your application without solicitors from the interested parties themselves attending. After the application has been granted, you may proceed to file the amended petition in court and serve copies of it on the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society.63 Prepare five copies of the amended petition in the manner described 62

63

Supreme Court Practice Directions, para 68(7): ‘A solicitor may, if he wishes to expedite matters, attend before the Duty Registrar even if his attendance is not ordinarily required.‘ The solicitor must give valid reasons why an urgent hearing date is required. You need not draw up or extract the order of court granting you leave to amend the petition. Under O 42 r 9(2)(c)(ii) read with r 9(3)(b), it is unnecessary to draw up any order of court which grants leave to amend documents and neither imposes any special terms nor includes any special directions as to costs. Paragraph 15 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions specifically draws the attention of solicitors to

18 Sing LR


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earlier. On the endorsement, fill in the date of the court order granting you leave to amend and have it signed by a solicitor from your firm. Reswear or reaffirm the affidavit portion before a Commissioner for Oaths, then have one copy stamped and filed in court. Do not forget to fill in the filing date on all copies. Finally, serve three copies of the amended petition on the AttorneyGeneral, BLE and Law Society. Retain the remaining copy of the amended petition in your personal file. Amending your petition is labourious and time-consuming. Check your petition carefully before filing to avoid having to resort to the process. D. Summary The following steps should be taken upon commencing pupillage:

i. ii.

Apply to the BLE for permission to serve pupillage. Prepare five copies of your (1) petition for admission as an advocate and solicitor; (2) notice; (3) the letter from the BLE granting you

iii.

permission to serve pupillage. Stamp one copy each of the petition and notice. File two copies of the

iv.

petition, notice and approval letter (including the stamped copies) in the Registry of the Supreme Court. One copy will be returned to you—this is your personal copy. Take it to the sealing counter of the Registry and have it sealed. Fill in any missing information on the three remaining copies of your

petition and notice based on your personal copy received from the Registry. Serve the three copies of the petition, notice and approval letter on the Attorney-General, the BLE, and the Law Society.

IV. PAPERS TO BE PREPARED DURING AND ON COMPLETION OF PUPILLAGE A. Registrar’s Certificate Once six months have elapsed since your notice was received and posted on the notice board of the Supreme Court, you may extract a Registrar’s Certificate from the Supreme Court. Signed by an Assistant Registrar, this document certifies the filing and posting date of the notice, and the fact that it was posted continuously from the date of posting and that no caveat has been lodged against you in the Registrar’s office. The caveat book is available at the Registry for checking. The form of the Registrar’s Certificate is prescribed in Form 19 of Appendix B of the Supreme Court Practice Directions.64 You should produce five copies of the certificate with the appropriate information entered, including a backing this provision of the Rules of Court. 64

Supreme Court Practice Directions, para 76(5).


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(1997)

sheet. Have one copy stamped, and file two copies (including the stamped copy) at the Registry of the Supreme Court. Your personal copy may be collected after one or two days; do not forget to seal it. You should then stamp ‘LS’ on the remaining three copies, fill in the name of the Assistant Registrar who has signed the certificate (‘Sgd XYZ’) and the date of signing, add the filing date on the backing sheet, and serve the certificate on the Attorney-General, the BLE and the Law Society. B. Affidavit verifying petition Upon completion of your pupillage, you are required to file an affidavit verifying your petition.65 The affidavit should be in Form E of the Legal Profession Rules. As with the petition there are different versions of Form E depending on your qualifications, so ensure that you use the version which applies to you. If you are typing your own affidavit instead of purchasing one from the BLE, please note that you are required to comply with Part IV of the Supreme Court Practice Directions on the form of affidavits and exhibits. When completing your affidavit, you should also note the following:

i.

ii.

65

Endorsement. You should endorse the following text to the left of the title of your affidavit:

When you file your affidavit, an Assistant Registrar will indicate the date on which your petition will be heard. For most NUS graduates, Diploma in Singapore Law holders, and members of the English Bar or holders of equivalent qualifications, the date indicated will be that of a mass call. Paragraph 1: qualifications. You should indicate the dates on which you received your qualifications in the same manner as in your

LPA, s 17(4).

18 Sing LR

iii.

iv.

66 67 68 69

70


471

petition.66 You are also required to attach certified true copies of the documents indicating your qualifications. Your degree certificate. Diploma in Singapore Law, or instrument of admission to the English Bar or equivalent qualification should be reduced to A4 size. If you are required to exhibit a true copy of the document relating to your admission as a candidate for your degree, the letter from the registrar of your university certifying when you were reserved a place for your course and when you commenced and graduated from the course will suffice. (See Appendix A, Form 4.) To signify that copies of documents are true copies, they should be stamped ‘Certified True Copy’ and signed by an advocate and solicitor, who should also affix his personal stamp to the copies. Paragraph 2: Board of Legal Education certificate. You are required to attach a certificate signed by the Secretary of the Board of Legal Education which verifies that you have attended the PLC, passed the bar examinations and completed your pupillage.67 The certificate, which should be in Form H of the Legal Profession Rules, should not be confused with the certificate issued by the BLE once you have passed the bar examinations and completed the PLC.68 You should prepare five copies of the certificate and bring it to the BLE69 together with the letter from the BLE approving your application to serve pupillage and a Certificate of Diligence duly signed by your pupil master. The Secretary will sign the certificates and affix the seal of the BLE to them. Paragraph 3: period of pupillage. In paragraph 3 of your affidavit you are required to state the periods during which you served pupillage. The main thing to note is that at common law a calendar month70 is reckoned as a period starting from a particular day of a month and extending to the day numerically corresponding to the day in the succeeding month less one. The month ends on the day in the succeeding month corresponding to the date upon which the period starts. Therefore, 6 May 1997 to 5 June 1997 is one calendar month,

See para ii in Part III.B of this article, supra. LPA, s17(4)(d). LPR, Form A. You should make an appointment with the BLE to ensure that the Secretary of the Board will be in when you go. The word ‘month’ in the LPA refers to a calendar month: Interpretation Act (Cap 1,1997 Rev Ed), s 2(1). References to ‘calendar months’ mean that time must be reckoned by looking at the calendar and not by counting days: Migotti v Colvill (1879) 4 CPD 233 at 238 (CA).


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and 6 June 1997 is the start of the next month. If there is no corresponding day, the calendar month ends on the last day of the succeeding month. So, for instance, 31 January 1997 to 28 February 1997 is a calendar month.71

(a)

(b)

71

72

73

74

Pupillage served in one continuous period. Where you have served pupillage in a single continuous period, you should indicate the starting and ending dates. For instance, if you started pupillage on 6 January 1997 and served for a continuous six-month period, you should state in your affidavit that you attended the office of your pupil master from ‘6 January 1997 to 5 July 1997’. If the last day of your six-month pupillage period happens to fall on a Sunday or a public holiday, you should indicate the next working day as the actual last day of pupillage.72 Pupillage interrupted by PLC. If you attend the PLC in the midst of pupillage, the period spent attending the PLC is not counted for the purpose of calculating the period of pupillage.73 You should therefore indicate in your affidavit the actual periods that count towards your pupillage. As the calculation is more complicated than the previous situation, an example will help. Let us assume that you start pupillage on Monday, 3 June 1996, and that the PLC is held from Monday, 15 July 1996, to Saturday, 14 December 1996 (five months).74 The last possible

45 Halsbury’s Laws (4th ed, 1985) para 1111. See Freeman v Read (1863) 4 B & S 174, 122 ER 425; Migotti v Colvill, ibid at 234, 238; Dodds v Walker [1981] 1 WLR 1027 (HL); EJRiley Investments Ltd v Eurostile Holdings Ltd [ 1985] 1 WLR 1139 (CA). The principle has been applied locally in Singaram v Fernando & Anor [1966] 2 MLJ 164 (HC, Ipoh); Setali Development Sdn Bhd & Anor v Lint You Keng [1984] 1 MLJ 26 (FC, Malaysia) and JeowFongMet v ChongMee Yoke [1996] 1 MLJ 387 (CA, Kuala Lumpur). More precisely, a calendar month begins at midnight of one day and ends at midnight of the day with the corresponding number of the next ensuing month in the calendar: see Freeman v Read and Jeow Fong Mei, ibid. Therefore, the period from midnight on 6 May 1997 to midnight on 6 June 1997 is one calendar month. Interpretation Act, s 50(b): ‘In computing time for the purposes of any written law, unless the contrary intention appears... if the last day of the period is a Sunday or a public holiday (which days are referred to in this section as excluded days) the period shall include the next following day not being an excluded day’. LPA, s 13(6). This is because the intention behind the statute is to treat the PLC as a distinct and exclusive phase of legal education separate from the period of pupillage with a pupil master: Att-Gen v Tay Yong Kwang [1984] 2 MLJ 241 (CA, Singapore). For ease of calculation, the PLC is usually arranged to begin on a Monday and end on a Saturday. The starting and ending dates of the PLC and the first possible date when pupillage may be resumed are usually stated in the Professional Practice manual issued by the BLE to all PLC candidates.


18 Sing LR

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day of pupillage before the PLC begins is the Saturday before the first day of the PLC, which in this case would be 13 July 1996. Let us further suppose that you resume pupillage on the first working day following the end of the PLC, which in this case would be Monday, 16 December 1996. The calculation would then be as follows: Dates 3 June-2 July 1996

1 month

3 July- 13 July 1996

11 days (we are short of a month by 20 days: 14 July-2 August)

15 July-14 December 1996 16 December 1996-15 April 1997 16 April-5 May 1997

[5 months ’ PLC—does not count towards pupillage]

Total

V.

75

Period counting towards pupillage

4 months 20 days (shortfall added from above) 6 months

In the example above, the pupillage period should be stated in the affidavit as ‘from 3 June 1996 to 13 July 1996 and from 16 December 1996 to 5 May 1997’. Again, if the last day of your sixmonth pupillage period falls on a Sunday or a public holiday, indicate the next working day as the actual last day of pupillage. If you have difficulty calculating your period of pupillage, you may write to the BLE for assistance. Paragraph 3: pupil master and Certificate of Diligence. State the full name of your pupil master and the name and address of the firm in which you are doing pupillage. You will also have to attach a Certificate of Diligence signed by your pupil master after you complete pupillage.75 By this certificate, your pupil master declares that you have ‘received instruction or gained experience in every type of work normally undertaken by an advocate and solicitor’ and have had ‘ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with the laws and the general rules of practice and procedure applicable to the legal profession in the Republic of Singapore.’ He is also required to state that you have been diligent in your work and that he is of the opinion that you are a fit and proper person for admission as an advocate and

LPA,sl7(4)(c).


474

vi.

vii.

solicitor. The certificate, which should be in Form G of the Legal Profession Rules, should state the full name and residential address of your pupil master and the periods of pupillage served in the same manner as your affidavit. It should be dated after the last day of your pupillage. Paragraph 4: Certificates of Good Character. The last two documents which you are required to exhibit in your affidavit are two recent Certificates of Good Character.76 Rule 13 of the Legal Profession Rules states that the Certificates of Good Character must be given by ‘two responsible persons not immediately related to the petitioner, who have known the petitioner for 2 years or more and have had opportunities of judging the petitioner’s character and one of whom shall be a resident of Singapore.’ ‘Good character’ has been held to refer to both disposition and reputation. Therefore, ‘if the petitioner appears, from the evidence on the petition, either to lack to the qualities of integrity, honesty and the like which an advocate and solicitor ought to possess, or to have a bad reputation in these respects, he will be shown to want that ‘good character’ which he needs in order to satisfy the qualification.’77 The certificates should be in Form F of the Legal Profession Rules and should state the full name, residential address and description of the persons attesting to your good character; the number of years that they have personally known you; and the circumstances in which they have had an opportunity of judging your character. You may ask a friend, including one who is currently serving pupillage, to sign a certificate for you. He or she should not be described vaguely as ‘a pupil’ but as ‘a Bachelor of Laws [or other applicable qualification] of [name of university] currently undergoing pupillage’. In paragraph 2 of the certificate your friend can state: ‘I have had the following opportunities of judging his/her character, that is to say, I am a friend of his/hers and was his/her classmate at the Faculty of Law, [name of university],’ The exhibits. As mentioned above, you are required to attach copies of various documents as exhibits to your affidavit. Paragraph 23 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions states certain requirements for exhibits. In particular, you should note the following: (a)

76 77

(1997)

Each exhibit should be preceded by a dividing sheet in a light colour other than white, on which the following exhibit mark must be typed or stamped:

LPA, s 17(4)(b). Re Alan Wong Hoi Ping [1988] 3 MLJ 25 (HC, Bandar Seri Begawan), citing Plato Films Ltd v Speidel [1961] AC 1090.

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475

This is the exhibit marked [exhibit number] referred to in the affidavit of [full name] and sworn/affirmed before me this [date]. Before me, A Commissioner for Oaths78 It is customary to identify exhibits to affidavits using the initials of the deponent of the affidavit.79 For instance, the exhibits to the affidavit of a petitioner named Jane Lim might be marked ‘JL-1’ to ‘JL-6’ on the dividing sheets, and referred to as such in the text of her affidavit. When the affidavit is sworn or affirmed before a Commissioner for Oaths, all the dividing sheets must also be signed and stamped by the Commissioner. (b) You must attach the exhibits to the affidavit in the order in which they are referred to in the affidavit.80 (c) Every page of the exhibits (excluding the dividing sheets) should be consecutively numbered at the top right-hand corner of each page, following from the page number of the last sheet of the affidavit.81 viii. Miscellaneous. Paragraph 22(2) of the Supreme Court Practice Directions requires you to state on the top right-hand corner of the first page of your affidavit and the backing sheet a single-line header containing the party on whose behalf the affidavit is filed, the name of the deponent, the number of the affidavit in relation to the deponent, and the date of filing. For instance, the header on your affidavit might read: ‘Petitioner: [your full name]: 1st: 05.05.97’. Note that if you were part-called82 during your pupillage, the affidavit filed in support of your application would be your first affidavit, so the affidavit under s 17(4) would be your second. You should swear or affirm your affidavit before a Commissioner for Oaths after the last day of your pupillage and date it accordingly. Having prepared five copies of your affidavit and sworn or affirmed it before a Commissioner for Oaths, you should have one copy stamped and filed together with an additional copy in the Registry of the Supreme Court. Write the filing date on the backing sheet of your affidavit. You are required to file

78 79

80 . 81 82

Supreme Court Practice Directions, para 25( 1 )(b). See the example in para 25( 1 )(c)(i) of the Supreme Court Practice Directions, where the exhibits of an imaginary deponent, Tan Ah Kow, were marked ‘TAK-1’, ‘TAK-2’ and so on. Ibid at para25(l)(c)(iii). Ibid at para 25(2). See Pt VII of this article, infra.

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the affidavit not less than twelve days before your petition is to be heard.83 There will normally be petitioners who are unable to comply with this deadline. This usually happens if pupillage is commenced late. If this happens to you, you should apply for an abridgement of time.84 Once your personal copy of the affidavit has been returned by the Registry, have it sealed and note the date when your petition will be heard. This will have been filled in on the endorsement on the first page of your affidavit. Stamp ‘LS’ on the three remaining copies of your affidavit and fill in the date and time when the petition will be heard, the name of the Assistant Registrar who signed the endorsement (‘Sgd XYZ’), and the filing date on the backing sheet. Ensure also that you have personally signed and dated all the copies, indicated the name of the Commissioner for Oaths (‘Sgd XYZ’) on the affidavits and dividing sheets, and marked and dated the dividing sheets. Serve the affidavit on the Attorney-General, the BLE and the Law Society in the usual manner. C. Change of pupil master during pupillage Pupillage need not be served with the same pupil master from start to finish. A change in pupil masters usually occurs when a person ceases serving pupillage at one law firm to continue it at another. In such situations, permission must be sought from the BLE.85 Your letter to the BLE should state the name and law firm of your first pupil master, the period you served pupillage there, the name and law firm of your second pupil master, and the date from which you are starting pupillage with the second pupil master. You will also have to modify paragraph 3 of your s 17(4) affidavit as follows: I have for not less than 6 months:

a. during the period [date] to [date] attended the office in the Republic of Singapore of [first pupil master], an advocate and solicitor who is and has been in active practice in Singapore for a total of not less than 5 out of the 7 years immediately preceding the date of this Affidavit and who practises under the name of [first law firm] at [address]; and b. during the period [date] to [date] attended the office in the Republic of Singapore of [second pupil master], an advocate and solicitor who is 83

84 85

LPA, s 17(4). If you are being admitted at a mass call, you may telephone Counter 6 of Registry 1 to find out when it is to be held. Otherwise, hearings for admissions are usually held on the second Wednesday of each month: LPA, s 23(1). See Pt V of this article, infra. LPA, s 14(4): ‘The Board may approve a request that a qualified person serve different parts of his period of pupillage with different masters.’ LPR, r 12(4): ‘A qualified person shall first notify the Board and obtain its approval if he intends to change his master and the Secretary shall enter the date of the notice and approval in the register.’

18 Sing LR


477

and has been in active practice in Singapore for a total of not less than 5 out of the 7 years immediately preceding the date of this Affidavit and who practises under the name of [second law firm] at [address]. The documents annexed hereto and marked ‘JL-4’ and ‘JL-5’ are the certificates of diligence of the said [first pupil master] and [second pupil master] respectively. Each pupil master should sign a separate Certificate of Diligence which indicates the periods when you served pupillage under him or her. D. Correcting errors in the affidavit Unlike a petition, an affidavit cannot be amended.86 The way to correct an error in an affidavit is to file a supplementary affidavit pointing out the error and providing the correct information.87 (See Appendix A, Form 5.) E. Summary The following steps should be taken during pupillage: a. At least six months after filing your petition and notice, prepare five copies of a Registrar’s certificate. File two copies with the Registry. Have the copy which is returned to you sealed, then fill in any missing information on the three remaining copies based on your personal copy. Serve the three copies on the Attorney-General, the BLE and the Law Society. b. Obtain a letter from your university certifying when you were admitted as a candidate for your Bachelor of Laws course, when you commenced the course, and when the detailed results of the final examination were released. Make five certified true copies. c. Make five certified true copies of your degree certificate, Diploma in Singapore Law, instrument of admission to the English Bar or equivalent qualification. d. Prepare five Certificates of Good Conduct each for two people and have them signed. e. Prepare in advance five copies of a Certificate of Diligence and a Board of Legal Education Certificate, but do not have them signed yet. Once you have completed pupillage: a. Have your pupil master sign the Certificate of Diligence.

86

87

Order 41 r 7(2): ‘No alteration shall be made in any affidavit after it has been filed...’ Pinsler, supra, n 60 at 51, 276.

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b. Have the Board of Legal Education Certificates signed and sealed by the Secretary of the BLE. c. Prepare five copies of the affidavit required by s 17(4) of the Legal Profession Act, attaching all the necessary exhibits. File two copies (one of which must be stamped) in the Registry. One copy will be returned to you—have it sealed. Fill in any missing information on the three remaining copies of your affidavit based on your personal copy. Serve the three copies on the Attorney-General, the BLE, and the Law Society. d. Apply for an abridgement of time to file your affidavit, if necessary. V. ABRIDGEMENT OF TIME The Legal Profession Act prescribes time periods for and within which certain acts must be done. For instance, s 17(3) requires a petitioner to file a notice of petition which must be posted at the Supreme Court for 6 months prior to admission. Under s 17(4), an affidavit must be filed not less than twelve days before the hearing of the petition. If for some reason a petitioner is unable to comply with these time periods, may the High Court entertain an application for abridgement of time? This issue came88 before the High Court in Penang in Pamela Ong Siew 1m v Majlis Peguam™ This was an application by a pupil master for abridgement of the three-month period for which her pupil’s notice of petition had to be posted in the High Courts of Malaya, a requirement under s 15(5) of the Malaysian Legal Profession Act 1976. Postings had been carried out on the notice boards of fourteen out of the fifteen High Courts in West Malaysia, except the High Court at Shah Alam. The pupil had no control over the actual posting as this was done by the High Court itself. In fact, the pupil master had written twice to the Senior Assistant Registrar of the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to complain that she had yet to receive the certificate of posting of the notice. The Bar Council and the Penang Bar Committee both indicated that they had no objections to the application for abridgement of time. In support of her application, the pupil master argued that the court had an inherent power under para 8 of the Schedule to s 25(2) of the Malaysian Courts of Judicature Act 1964 (Act 91, Rev Ed 1972). This provision89 is in pari materia with para 7 of the First Schedule to our Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Cap 322, 1985 Rev Ed), which states that the High Court has:

88 89

[1995] 3 CLJ 598, [1995] 3 AMR 2111. The provision reads: ‘Power to enlarge or abridge the time prescribed by any written law for doing any act or taking any proceeding, although any application therefor be not made until after the expiration of the time prescribed: Provided that this provision shall be without prejudice to any written law relating to limitation.’

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Power to enlarge or abridge the time prescribed by any written law for doing any act or taking any proceeding, whether the application therefore is made before or after the expiration of the time prescribed but this provision shall be without prejudice to any written law relating to limitation.

However, the court held that it had no express or inherent power to abridge time in the circumstances of this case. It lacked express power because the Malaysian Legal Profession Act 1976 was silent on the issue. Further, since ss 15(3) and 16(1) of the Legal Profession Act explicitly empowered the court to abridge time while s 15(5) was silent on the point, this suggested that the legislature had deliberately intended to bar the court from exercising any inherent jurisdiction to abridge time. The court also approved the following passage from the judgment of Grove J in Barker v Palmer.90 ‘In construing Acts of Parliament, provisions which appear on the face of them obligatory, cannot, without strong reasons given, be held only directory. The rule is, that provisions with respect to time are always obligatory unless a power of extending the time is given to the Court, and there is no such power here.’ Lastly, following Lee Lee Cheng v Siow Peng Kwang,91 the court felt that the Malaysian Courts of Judicature Act 1964 could not be relied on because the provision merely set out the scope of authority of the High Court where it had been expressly empowered by written law to extend time. It is respectfully submitted that Pamela Ong should not be followed in Singapore. For a start, unlike ss 15(3) and 16(1) of the Malaysian Legal Profession Act, the corresponding provisions of the Legal Profession Act—ss 17(4) and 19(1)—do not expressly confer on the court a power to abridge time. More importantly, it is submitted that Singapore’s para 7 should be seen as an express conferment of power on the High Court to extend or abridge time rather than an embodiment of the court’s inherent jurisdiction.92 On this ground, Barker v Palmer is distinguishable since it is arguable that in Singapore the Court does have an express power to extend or abridge time, although it appears in the Supreme Court of Judicature Act rather than the Legal Profession Act. Furthermore, it is suggested that the holding in Lee Lee Cheng is at best doubtful. In that case, a traffic accident caused the deaths of both a passenger in a car and a lorry driver. On 17 February 1958, the plaintiff, who was the passenger’s administrator, commenced an action against the defendant, the lorry driver’s administrator. Under s 8(3) of the Malayan Civil Law Ordinance, no proceedings were maintainable against the estate of a deceased person unless proceedings were taken not later than six months after his personal representative took out representation. On the facts, the plaintiff should have 90 91 92

(1881) 8 QBD 9 at 10. [1958] MLJ 271 (HC, Ipoh). Note that O 3 r 4( 1) is not applicable to proceedings under the LPA because it only permits the Court to extend or abridge any period within which a person is required or authorized by the Rules of Court or any judgment, order or direction to do any act in any proceedings.

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commenced an action on or before 10 February 1958. The plaintiffs action had therefore been commenced out of time. She applied for an order for time to be extended, relying on para 12 of Part A of the Second Schedule to the Malayan Courts Ordinance (in pari materia with Singapore’s para 7). Without citing any authority, the court held that para 12 merely sets out the jurisdiction of the High Court where express provision is made by law to extend time, and does not give the court a general power to extend time. This goes against a plain and natural reading of the provision and deprives para 7 of much of its purpose. As Parliament cannot be taken to have enacted ineffective provisions in a statute, para 7 must have a broader function: to empower the High Court to extend or abridge time. Alternatively, if Lee Lee Cheng is correctly decided, its holding should be confined to statutes of limitation. Unlike Singapore’s para 7 which expressly states that the High Court’s power to extend or abridge time is ‘without prejudice to any written law relating to limitation’, there was no such proviso in the corresponding Malayan provision when Lee Lee Cheng was decided. It is therefore understandable that the court was wary of destroying the defendant’s defence of limitation by granting an extension of time for the plaintiff to file her claim. In any case, even if the High Court is not expressly empowered by written law to abridge time, it is submitted that the court possesses an inherent jurisdiction to do so.93 Order 92 r 4 of the Rules of Court declares that nothing in the Rules limits or affects the inherent powers of the court to make any order as may be necessary to prevent injustice or to prevent an abuse of the process of the court. In this respect, the statement in Central Electricity Board v Commissioner of the Federal Capital94 that ‘[t]he court has no inherent jurisdiction to extend time except where such power is expressly given to it under a provision of the law’ is suspect. The court’s inherent jurisdiction stems from its very nature as a judicial tribunal and is quite independent of the presence or absence of any express provision. A more sympathetic reading of the case suggests that the court was trying to achieve the same result as Lee Lee Cheng—Central Electricity Board, too, which also involved an attempt to circumvent a limitation period. There are in fact two conflicting Singapore decisions on point. In Re Lam Sek Fah,95 the petitioner’s notice of petition had been posted at the Supreme Court for a period a few days short of six months. It was argued that the court had inherent jurisdiction to abridge time in such cases. In particular, the petitioner referred to what is now para 7 of the First Schedule to the Supreme

93

94 95

Cf Keymer v Reddy [1912] 1 KB 215 at 221 (CA) and Pole-Carew v Western Counties and General Manure Co Ltd (\9\9) 89 LJ Ch 100 (CA). Both cases deal with the court’s inherent jurisdiction to extend time, but there should be no difference in principle where abridgement of time is concerned. [1967] 2 MLJ 161 at 162-3 (HC, Kuala Lumpur). Admission of Advocates and Solicitors No 36 of 1971, 8 December 1971 (HC), noted in ‘Advocates and Solicitors—Admission of—Abridgement of Time’ [1972] 1 MLJ xxvii.

18 Sing LR


481

Court of Judicature Act. The Attorney-General, the BLE and the Law Society objected on the grounds that (1) the Legal Profession Act itself categorically specified that the notice should be posted on the notice board of the Supreme Court for six months; and (2) on the authority of Lee Lee Cheng, the SCJA could not be used to invoke the court’s inherent jurisdiction since the Legal Profession Act did not vest jurisdiction in the court to extend time. Tan Ah Tah J ruled that the petitioner had not complied with the Legal Profession Act and adjourned the petition for further hearing on the next date allocated for admissions. This case was cited with approval in Pamela Ong. The opposite conclusion was reached in Re Lee Hock Seng.96 In this case, the petitioner filed a Certificate of Diligence by which his pupil master certified that the petitioner had attended his office for one hundred and eighty days rather than the statutory period of six months. Counsel for both the AttorneyGeneral and Law Society objected to the petition. The learned Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin ruled that one hundred and eighty days’ pupillage could not be accepted as six months’ pupillage. However, since the petitioner had complied with the other provisions of the Legal Profession Act, he was prepared to abridge time. He therefore made an order in terms despite arguments by counsel for the Law Society that the court had no power to abridge time. For the reasons given above, it is submitted that Re Lee Hock Seng and not Re Lam SekFah should be followed. Where non-compliance with a time limit is minor or due to circumstances beyond the petitioner’s control, as was the case in Pamela Ong, it cannot be that the court is powerless to waive the irregularity. Paragraph 60 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions assumes that the High Court has power to abridge the time period in s 17(4) of the Legal Profession Act. This provision states that affidavits verifying the petition must be filed not less than twelve days before the hearing date of the petition. The maximum abridgement given is five days as the Registrar will not fix a petition for hearing unless the petitioner is able to file and serve an affidavit at least seven days before the hearing day, Sundays and public holidays included. This is so that if the Attorney-General, the BLE or the Law Society have any objections to a petition, they may serve on the petitioner a notice of objection and the grounds of the objection not less than three clear days before the hearing as required by s 19(2).97 An application for abridgement of time should be made by way of summons-in-chambers supported by an affidavit. (See Appendix A, Forms 6 and 7.) Stamp one copy each of your summons and affidavit, then file them with an additional copy of the summons at Counter 6 of Registry 1. The summons will be made returnable on your call date, ie your application will be

96 97

Ibid. Supreme Court Practice Directions, paras 60(1 )-(3). When an act is required to be done a specified number of clear days before or after a specified date, at least that number of days must intervene between the day on which the act is done and that date: O 3 r 2(4).

482


(1997)

fixed for hearing on the same day as your call. Collect your personal copy of the summons from the Registry, have it sealed, and make three photocopies of it. Stamp ‘LS’ on them and serve them together with copies of your supporting affidavit on the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society. As the listing of your petition for hearing does not preclude the interested parties from objecting to your application for an abridgement at the hearing itself,98 you should obtain their consent to your application in advance. At the hearing, you must ask a solicitor to present your application to the Court. If you are attending a mass call, arrangements will be made on your behalf.99 VI. THE CALL TO THE BAR A. After you file your affidavit On filing your affidavit, you will be handed a set of detailed instructions on how the call to the Bar will be conducted, and a Mode of Declaration Form. Indicate on the form whether you will be swearing on the Bible or affirming your declaration which will be made on the day of your call and return it to Counter 6 of Registry 1. After you have served copies of your affidavit on the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society, if they have any objections to your petition they are required to serve on you a notice of objection setting out briefly the grounds of the objection at least 3 clear days or such shorter period as the court may allow before the date of the hearing.100 Objections are usually made because of mistakes in the call papers. Errors in your petition should be corrected as stated above in Part III.C of this article, while errors in your affidavit may be remedied by filing a supplemental affidavit as explained in Part I V.D. If the three parties have no objections, they will send you letters to this effect. B. What happens on the day Except during court vacation, petitions for admission as advocates and solicitors are heard on the second Wednesday of every month unless the Chief

98 99

100

Ibid at para 60(4). It is submitted that it is not necessary to extract the order of court granting you leave to abridge time. Under O 42 r 9(2)(c)(ii) read with r 9(3)(c), it is unnecessary to draw up any order of court which simply grants leave for the filing of any documents and neither imposes any special terms nor includes any special directions as to costs. See also para 15 of the Supreme Court Practice Directions. LPA, s 19(2). The notices of objection must also be filed in the Registrar’s office any time before the day fixed for the hearing of the petition: s 19(3). As s 19(2) is a mandatory provision, where notices of objection are not served on the petitioner not less than three clear days before the hearing of the petition, the objections will be overruled by the Court: Shamsiah bte Ibrahim v Attorney-General [1981] 1 MLJ 164(HC,Johor Bahru).

18 Sing LR


483

Justice otherwise orders for any particular month.101 When mass calls are organised, the Chief Justice normally orders the call to be held on the last Saturday of the month.102 During a mass call, petitioners will be divided among several courtrooms. Petitioners who will be swearing their declarations will be allocated a different courtroom from those affirming, while those who require abridgement of time to file and serve their affidavits will also be grouped together. All petitions will be moved by ‘common movers’, that is, advocates and solicitors appointed by the Law Society. Individual movers are not permitted during mass calls. You will be required to dressed appropriately in standard court dress. Men are required to wear a long-sleeved white shirt with a turn-down collar, a tie of a subdued or sober colour, a dark jacket, dark trousers and black or plaincoloured shoes. Women should wear a long-sleeved white blouse which is high to the neck, a dark jacket, a dark skirt or dark trousers, and black or plaincoloured shoes. Conspicuous jewellery or ornaments should not be worn.103 As the ceremony takes place in the Supreme Court, you will also be required to wear a court gown during part of the proceedings. The ceremony is simple. As the presiding judge enters the courtroom, everyone rises and bows. The petitioners in each courtroom are divided into groups, and when the judge enters the first group of petitioners should already be standing at the second bar table carrying their court gowns on their left arm, behind the first bar table where the common mover is sitting. As the common mover calls their names, each petitioner bows to the judge. The judge grants their petitions. The newly-admitted advocates and solicitors then put on their gowns, hold their Declaration Forms (and Bible, if swearing) in their left hands and raise their right hands in order to take the declaration prescribed by law:104 I, [name], do solemnly and sincerely declare (and swear) that I will truly and honestly conduct myself in the practice of an advocate and solicitor according to the best of my knowledge and ability and according to law. (So help me God.)

They commence the making of the declaration by announcing their names in turn in the following manner: ‘I, [name]’. Once the whole group of advocates and solicitors has announced their names, they repeat the main body of the declaration in unison after a Supreme Court staff member. Once the declarations are made, the advocates and solicitors sign their Declaration Forms, then bow together to the judge. The forms are collected as the newly-admitted advocates and solicitors return to their seats. The whole process is then repeated until all the petitioners in the courtroom have been called to the Bar. The next working day after the call to the Bar, you should prepare a

101 102 103 104

LPA, s 23(1). A Registrar’s Circular is normally issued to this effect. Supreme Court Practice Directions, paras 64(2), (3). LPA, s 24.


484

(1997)

praecipe105 to extract your Instrument of Admission. (See Appendix A, Form 8.) Retrieve your Declaration Form from Counter 6 of Registry 1, have both your praecipe and Declaration Form stamped, then return both documents to the Registry. Your Instrument of Admission will be issued on the spot. If you intend to practise in a law firm, you will need to apply for a Practising Certificate. The procedure for doing so is beyond the scope of this article, but you may consult Part III of the Legal Profession Act, the Legal Profession (Practising Certificate) Rules 1997 (No S 63 of 1997), and Yasho Dhoraisingam, ‘Lawyers and their Practising Certificates’, Singapore Law Gazette, May 1995, at 11. C. Summary The following steps should be taken after you have filed your affidavit: a.

Complete the Mode of Declaration Form and return it to Counter 6, Registry 1. b. If the Attorney-General, BLE or Law Society has any objections to your petition or affidavit, make the necessary applications to correct them. c. After the call to the Bar, retrieve your Declaration Form from the Registry and stamp it. Also stamp and file a praecipe to extract your Instrument of Admission. VII. PART-CALL

Section 32(2) of the Legal Profession Act states: A judge may, if he thinks fit, on the application of a solicitor who is a master under Part II allow his pupil who has completed not less than 4 months of his pupillage to appear on behalf of the master or the firm in which the master is a partner before— (a) (b)

a judge or the Registrar in chambers; a District Judge or the Registrar of a District Court in chambers; and (c) a District Judge or a Magistrate to mention a case or to apply for bail.

This is commonly known as a ‘part-call’. To qualify, you must have served at least four months of pupillage if you have completed the PLC, or six months if you have not.106

105

A praecipe, from the Latin meaning ‘take beforehand’, ‘warn’ or ‘instruct’, is a document on which a party to a proceeding writes the particulars of a document which he wishes to have prepared or issued. It is handed to a court officer whose duty it is to prepare or issue the document, thereby instructing him or her to do so.

106

Law Society of Singapore Practice Directions and Rulings (1989) (‘PDR’) at 2, para 4(b).

18 Sing LR


485

The Legal Profession Act does not prescribe any forms for making a partcall application. Surprisingly, there is some confusion over the applicable procedure. Until recently, it was believed that a pupil master had to apply by petition supported by an affidavit by the pupil. This part-call petition bore the same AAS number as the pupil’s petition under s 17(2) of the Legal Profession Act.107 This procedure cannot be correct. Under O 5 r 5 of the Rules of Court, proceedings may be begun by originating petition if, but only if, by the Rules or by or under any written law the proceedings in question are required or authorized to be so begun. The Legal Profession Act does not say that part-call applications must be made by petition. Furthermore, it is highly irregular for two petitions dealing with different matters to bear the same reference number. It is submitted that part-call applications should be made by way of summons-in-chambers under the pupil s petition. The current practice requires you and your pupil master to each file an affidavit supporting the application. Precedents of the summons and supporting affidavits appear in Appendix A. Forms 9,10 and 11. In particular, note that you are unlikely to have taken part in all the activities stated in the precedent of the pupil’s affidavit—you should therefore tailor the precedent to reflect what you have actually done during your pupillage. Never depose to activities which you have not engaged in. Prepare two copies of the summons and five copies of each supporting affidavit. Stamp one copy of the summons and affidavit, and take them together with an additional copy of the summons to Counter 6 of Registry 1 to obtain a Summons-in-Chambers Entered Number. A solicitor from your firm should then appear before the Duty Registrar to obtain an urgent hearing date for the application. If an urgent hearing date is not obtained, your part-call summons may be scheduled for hearing some 3 weeks later, leaving you little time before the end of pupillage to actually exercise your part-call privileges. File the summons and affidavit after a hearing date has been assigned. After your personal copy of the summons is returned to you, make three copies and serve it together with copies of the affidavits on the Attorney-General, BLE and Law Society. Although the Legal Profession Act does not expressly require such service, it has become a customary practice to do so. Prior to the hearing date of the petition, you should prepare one copy of a draft order of court, (See Appendix A, Form 12,) with the following endorsement on the top of the first page:

It is not necessary to add an endorsement for the BLE as it will normally have no objections if the draft order is approved by the Attorney-General and

107

See The Pupillage Handbook, supra, n 1 at 34-35 (Annexure B).

486


(1997)

the Law Society. Have the draft approved and signed by a solicitor from your firm. On the hearing date, your summons should be presented by your pupil master, or if he or she is unable to attend, a senior partner of the firm.108 The hearing in chambers is normally quite brief. Your pupil master will inform the judge of the nature of the application, and if there are no objections from counsel representing the Attorney-General and the Law Society, the judge will grant an order in terms. After the hearing, you should have the draft approved and signed by counsel for the two interested parties. Once this is done, you may prepare two additional copies of the final order, taking into account any amendments which have been made to the draft. Stamp one copy and file it together with an unstamped copy in the Registry. Have the copy that is returned to you sealed, then make three copies of it and serve it on the Attorney-General, the BLE and the Law Society. There appears to be some doubt about how long part-call privileges last. One school of thought holds that they only continue till the end of pupillage. This is because s 32(2) uses the words pupil and master, and under s 13(1) of the Legal Profession Act the terms are used to describe a qualified person and the person with whom he serves pupillage during the period of pupillage. Furthermore, as the Act does not state when part-call privileges cease, if they continue after pupillage it would seem that qualified persons could exercise them indefinitely even if they never got called to the Bar. This is unlikely to have been Parliament’s intention. On the other hand, the High Court has ruled that a pupil who has not completed the PLC should have served at least six months of pupillage before he is entitled to be part-called.l09 This suggests that part-call privileges extend beyond the end of pupillage. In practice, many qualified persons do exercise part-call privileges during the period between the end of pupillage and their call to the Bar. It is submitted that the legislature should eliminate the uncertainty by amending s 32(2) to state that part-call privileges last for a fixed period after pupillage, say three months. This would allow qualified persons to continue gaining practical experience after pupillage, while ensuring that the privilege does not last indefinitely.

108

109

PDR at 2, para 4(a): ‘The Chief Justice has commented that it is a discourtesy for petitioners who apply for their pupils to appear in chambers not to attend on their applications .... [W]henever possible the Master of a pupil should appear on these applications and if he is not able, then a senior colleague should attend.’ PDR at 2, para 4(b).


18 Sing LR

487

APPENDIX A FORMS 1.

TITLE IN THE ACTION IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE Admission of Advocates ) and Solicitors ) No [x] of 1997 ) In the Matter of [full name[ (NRIC No [number]), a qualified person as defined in section 2 of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 1994 Ed) And

In the Matter of sections ll(l)(a) and 17 of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 1994 Ed)

Part III.C

2.

AMENDING PETITION: SUMMONS-IN-CHAMBERS (Title as in Form 1) (Seal)

SUMMONS-IN-CHAMBERS

LET ALL PARTIES concerned attend before the Judge/Registrar in Chambers on the day of 1997 at am/pm on the hearing of an application on the part of the Petitioner for an order that he/she be given leave to amend paragraph [x] of the Petition herein as shown in red in the proposed Amended Petition annexed hereto. The grounds of this application are set out in the Affidavit of the Petitioner filed herein in support. Dated this Entered No CLERK

day of

1997.

of 1997 ASSISTANT REGISTRAR

488


(1997)

This summons is taken out by [name of law firm] of [address], solicitors for the Petitioner. We consent:

Attorney-General of Singapore

Board of Legal Education

Law Society of Singapore To:

The Honourable Attorney-General Attorney-General‘s Chambers 1 Coleman Street #10-00 The Adelphi Singapore 179803 The Board of Legal Education 9th Floor, Conference Room Subordinate Courts 1 Havelock Square Singapore 059724 The Law Society of Singapore 1 Colombo Court #08-30/05 Singapore 179742


18 Sing LR PartIII.C

489

3. AMENDING PETITION: AFFIDAVIT (Title as in Form 1) AFFIDAVIT

I, [full name], of [residential address], do make oath [or solemnly and sincerely affirm] and say as follows: 1. I am the Petitioner in this matter. The facts deposed to are personally known to me, and are true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. 2. I make this Affidavit in support of my application to amend my Petition herein. 3. I crave leave to refer to the Petition herein. Due to an oversight on my part, in paragraph 2(b) I stated the date I passed the final examination for the degree of Bachelor of Laws as 17 April 1997 instead of 17 May 1997. I also deleted paragraph 5 of the Petition which should not have been deleted. 4. The Attorney-General of Singapore, the Board of Legal Education and the

Law Society of Singapore have all consented to this application. 5. In the circumstances, I humbly pray that this Honourable Court grants me

an order in the terms of the application. SWORN/AFFIRMED by [full name] this day of 1997 in Singapore

) ) ) )

Before me, A COMMISSIONER FOR OATHS


490 Part IV.B

(1997)

4.

LETTER OF CERTIFICATION FROM UNIVERSITY To whom it may concern: This is to certify that Mr/Ms [full name] (NRIC No [number] was admitted as a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Laws on [date]. He/she commenced the course on [date], and passed the final examination for the degree held in [month and year]. The results of the examination were released on [date]. He/she was conferred the degree of Bachelor of Laws [or equivalent degree] on [date]. [Name] for Registrar

PartlV.D

5. SUPPLEMENTARY AFFIDAVIT

(Title as in Form 1) SUPPLEMENTARY AFFIDAVIT I, [full name], of [residential address], do make oath [or solemnly and sincerely affirm] and say as follows: 1. I am the Petitioner in this matter. The facts deposed to are based on my personal knowledge and documents in my possession. They are true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. 2. I make this supplementary affidavit to correct errors in my lst/2nd Affidavit

filed herein on [date]. 3. I crave leave to refer to paragraph 3 of my lst/2nd Affidavit, in which I stated

my period of pupillage as ‘from 2 June 1997 to 13 July 1997 and from 16 December 1998 to 15 April 1998.’ The correct period should be from 2 June 1997 to 13 July 1997 and from 16 December 1997 to 4 May 1998. 4.

I also crave leave to refer to paragraph 4 of my lst/2nd Affidavit. I was notified by the Board of Legal Education by a letter dated 12 May 1996, annexed hereto and marked ‘JL-1’, that it was objecting to my Petition for Admission as an Advocate and Solicitor on the ground that both of the Certificate of Good Character annexed to my lst/2nd Affidavit were signed

18 Sing LR

491


by persons not resident in Singapore. I therefore place before this Honourable Court a recent Certificates of Good Character, annexed hereto and marked ‘JL-2’, which is signed by a person who is a resident of Singapore. SWORN/AFFIRMED

) ) ) )

by [full name]

this day of 1997 in Singapore


PartV

6.

ABRIDGEMENT OF TIME: SUMMONS-IN-CHAMBERS (Title as in Form 1) (Seal)

SUMMONS-IN-CHAMBERS

LET ALL PARTIES concerned attend before the Judge/Registrar in Chambers on the day of 1997 at am/pm on the hearing of an application on the part of the Petitioner for an order that the time for filing his/her affidavit under section 17(4) of the Legal Profession Act be abridged by 5 days. The grounds of this application are set out in the Affidavit of the Petitioner filed herein in support. Dated this Entered No CLERK

day of

1997.


This summons is taken out by [name of law firm] of [address], solicitors for the Petitioner.

492 To:


(1997)

The Honourable Attorney-General Attorney-General’s Chambers 1 Coleman Street #10-00 The Adelphi Singapore 179803 The Board of Legal Education 9th Floor, Conference Room Subordinate Courts 1 Havelock Square Singapore 059724 The Law Society of Singapore 1 Colombo Court #08-30/05 Singapore 179742

PartV

7. ABRIDGEMENT OF TIME: AFFIDAVIT (Title as in Form 1) AFFIDAVIT

I, [full name], of [residential address], do make oath [or solemnly and sincerely affirm] and say as follows:

1. I am the Petitioner in this matter. The facts deposed to are known to me personally, and are true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. 2. I make this Affidavit in support of my application for an abridgement of 5 days for filing an Affidavit verifying my Petition herein, pursuant to section 17(4) of the Legal Profession Act. 3. My Petition is fixed for hearing on [date]. As section 17(4) of the Legal Profession Act stipulates that the Affidavit verifying the Petition must be filed not less than 12 days before the Petition is to be heard, the last day for filing is [date]. 5. [I served pupillage from [date] to [date], from [date] to [date], and from [date] to [date]. I had to interrupt my pupillage because I was ill with


18 Sing LR

493

chicken pox from [date] to [date]. Annexed hereto and marked ‘JL-1’ is a copy of my medical certificate for the relevant period.] As I will complete my pupillage on [date], I am only able to file the Affidavit together with the supporting exhibits on [date]. Hence, I will be unable to comply with the time period stipulated in section 17(4) of the Legal Profession Act unless it is abridged. 5. In the circumstances, I pray that this Honourable Court grants an order in the terms of the application herein.

SWORN/AFFIRMED by [full name]

this day of 1997 in Singapore

) ) ) )


Part VLB

8. PRAECIPE FOR INSTRUMENT OF ADMISSION (Title as in Form 1) PRAECIPE

To the Registrar Please issue an Instrument of Admission for the abovenamed [name of Petitioner]. Dated this

day of

1997.

[Name of firm]

494

(1997)


PartVII

9. PART-CALL: SUMMONS-IN-CHAMBERS

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE Admission of Advocates and Solicitors No [x] of 1997

) ) ) In the Matter of [full name] (NRIC No [number]), a qualified person as defined in section 2 of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 1994 Ed)

(Seal)

And In the Matter of section 32(2) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 1994 Ed) SUMMONS-IN-CHAMBERS

LET ALL PARTIES concerned attend before the Judge/Registrar in Chambers on the day of 1997 at am/pm on the hearing of an application on the part of [full name of pupil master], a partner of [name of law firm], for an order that the abovementioned Petitioner may be admitted by this Honourable Court to appear on his/her behalf or the firm in which he/she is a partner before. a. a Judge or the Registrar in chambers; b. a District Judge or the Registrar of a District Court in chambers; and c. a District Judge or a Magistrate to mention a case or to apply for bail. The grounds of this application are set out in the Affidavit of [full name of pupil master] and [full name of pupil] filed herein in support. Dated this Entered No CLERK

day of

1997.


This summons is taken out by [full name of pupil master] of [address of law firm].

18 Sing LR To:


495

The Honourable Attorney-General Attorney-General’s Chambers 1 Coleman Street #10-00 The Adelphi Singapore 179803 The Board of Legal Education 9th Floor, Conference Room Subordinate Courts 1 Havelock Square Singapore 059724 The Law Society of Singapore 1 Colombo Court #08-30/05 Singapore 179742

PartVII

10. PART-CALL: AFFIDAVIT OF PUPIL MASTER (Title as in Form 10) AFFIDAVIT

I, [full name of pupil master] (NRIC No [number]), of [address of firm], do make oath [or solemnly and sincerely affirm] and say as follows:

1. I am an advocate and solicitor, and am and have been in active practice in Singapore for a total of not less than 5 out of the 7 years immediately preceding the date of the Petition herein. The facts set out in this Affidavit are personally known to me, and are true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. 2. I make this Affidavit in support of my application for my pupil, the above-

named Petitioner, to be admitted by this Honourable Court to appear, on behalf of myself or the firm in which I am partner, before a Judge or the Registrar in Chambers, a District Judge or the Registrar of a District Court in Chambers, and a District Judge or a Magistrate to mention a case or to apply for bail. 3.

The Petitioner is a qualified person as defined in section 2 of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161,1994 Ed), having attained the age of 21 years and

496


(1997)

having: [a. been admitted as a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Laws by the National University of Singapore after 1 May 1993 (that is to say, on 1 July 1993); and b. on 17 May 1997 passed the final examination for that degree with Upper Second Honours.] [State appropriate qualification.] 4. The Petitioner completed the Postgraduate Practical Course in Law organised by the Board of Legal Education from [date] to [date]. 5. The Petitioner petitioned this Honourable Court to admit and enrol him/her as an advocate and solicitor on [date]. 6. The Petitioner has for a period of not less than 4/6 months since [first day of pupillage] read in Chambers as a pupil in the firm of [name of firm]. I believe that he/she has received instruction and gained experience in every type of work normally undertaken by an advocate and solicitor and has had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with the laws and general rules of practice and procedure applicable to the legal profession in the Republic of Singapore. 7. The Petitioner has been diligent in his/her work, and from my knowledge and observation I am of the opinion that she is a fit and proper person for admission as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore and that she is fit and prepared to perform the duties under section 32(2) of the Legal Profession Act. 8. For the above reasons, I pray that this Honourable Court grants an order in the terms of the application.

SWORN/AFFIRMED by [full name of pupil master] this day of 1997 in Singapore Before me,

A COMMISSIONER FOR OATHS

) ) ) )

18 Sing LR

PartVII


497

11. PART-CALL: AFFIDAVIT OF PUPIL (Title as in Form 10) AFFIDAVIT

I, [full name of pupil], of [residential address], do make oath [or solemnly and sincerely affirm] and say as follows:

1. I am the Petitioner herein, and am a pupil in the firm of [name of firm] of [address]. The facts set out in this Affidavit are personally known to me, and are true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief. 2. I crave leave to refer to the Affidavit of [full name of pupil master] filed herein, and confirm that paragraphs 3 and 5 are true. 3. In particular, the work I have undertaken and assisted in includes the following: a. Drafting letters of demand, writs of summons (in personam and in rem), statements of claim, statements of defence and counterclaim, originating summons, originating petitions and motions, summons-in-chambers, affidavits (including an affidavit in support of a Mareva injunction), orders of court and other court documents; b. Attending meetings with solicitors from [name of firm] to take instructions from clients, to record statements from witnesses and to deal with other matters; c. Accompanying solicitors from [name of firm] to attend civil and criminal hearings in open court and in chambers before Judges and Registrars, and assisting in related matters; d. Drafting joint venture agreements, licensing agreements, shareholders’ agreements and other contracts; drafting debentures, mortgages, loan agreements and other security documents; preparing documents and conducting the necessary searches for the incorporation of a company; drafting directors’ and shareholders’ resolutions; attending a company’s Annual General Meeting as a proxy for a client; helping in the preparation of documents for the listing of a company on the Stock Exchange of Singapore; and assisting in other corporate matters; e. Helping to process trademark and patent registrations;

498

(1997)


f. Drafting conveyances, deeds of assignment, mortgages, property sale and purchase agreements and tenancy agreements; conducting requisitions and title searches; interviewing clients on financing arrangements; attending the completion of a sale and purchase with solicitors from [name of firm]; and assisting in other conveyancing matters; g. Drafting wills, and petitions and grants for probate and letters of administration; and preparing estate duty affidavits; h. Researching legal issues in various areas of the law; and i. Drafting opinions and letters to clients in relation to advice on points of law. 4. In the circumstances, I humbly pray that this Honourable Court grants an

order in the terms of the application.

SWORN/AFFIRMED by [full name of pupil]

) )

this

day of

)

1997 in Singapore

)


PartVII

12. PART-CALL ORDER OF COURT (Title as in Form 10)

(Seal)

ORDER OF COURT

BEFORE THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE/JUDICIAL COMMISSIONER [full name]

IN CHAMBERS

UPON THE APPLICATION of [full name of pupil master], an advocate and solicitor practising in the firm of [name of firm] of [address], made by way of Summons-in-Chambers Entered No [x] of 1997 coming on for hearing this

18 Sing LR

499


day AND UPON READINGthe Affidavit of the Applicant filed herein on [date] and the Affidavit of the Petitioner filed herein on [date] AND UPON HEARINGthe Applicant, State Counsel for the Honourable Attorney-General and Counsel for the Law Society of Singapore; IT IS ORDEREDthat the Petitioner herein be at liberty to appear on behalf of the Applicant or the firm of [name of firm] in which the Applicant is a partner before: a. a Judge or the Registrar in chambers; b. a District Judge or the Registrar of a District Court in chambers; and c. a District Judge or a Magistrate to mention a case or to apply for bail. Dated this

day of

1997. ASSISTANT REGISTRAR

500

(1997)

Singapore Law Review APPENDIX B

Court Fees: Call papers

Items

Fees

Document on which stamp is to be affixed

Citation

Petition for admission of advocates and solicitors Notice of filing petition

$150

The filed copy

$10

The filed copy

Registrar’s certificate

$20

Certificate

Affidavit in support of petition for admission of advocates and solicitors Praecipe for instrument of admission

$10

The filed copy

LPA, s 17(2); Rules of Court (RC), Appendix B,para 5 LPA, s 17(3); RC, Appendix B, para 70A RC, Appendix B, para 76 LPA, s 17(4); RC, Appendix B, para 72

$100

The praecipe

Declaration

$10

The declaration

Part-call summonsin-chambers

$20

The filed copy

Each affidavit in support of part-call summons Part-call order of court

$10

The filed copy

$50

Order

LPA, s 24(5); Legal Profession (Prescribed Fees) Rules (Cap 161, 1990 Ed, R12) LPA, ss 24(1), (2); RC, Appendix B, para 70A LPA, s 32(2); RC, Appendix B, para 13 RC, Appendix B, para 72 LPA, s 32(2); RC, Appendix B, para 27

18 Sing LR

501


Amendments and Abridgement of Time Items

Fees

Document on which stamp is to be affixed

Citation

Summons-inchambers for amending petition Affidavit in support of summons Amended petition

$20

The filed copy

RC, Appendix B, para 13

$10

The filed copy

$20

The filed copy

Supplemental affidavit

$10

The filed copy

RC, Appendix B, para 72 RC, Appendix B, para 4 read with O20r7 RC, Appendix B, para 72

Summons-inchambers for abridgement of time Affidavit in support of summons

$20

The filed copy


$10

The filed copy


Note: The stamp fee for affidavits is $1 per page or part thereof including the annexed exhibits, subject to a minimum fee of $ 10 per affidavit: RC, Appendix B, para 72.

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