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SINGAPORE – The pro-bono lawyer who managed to obtain a full acquittal for the former maid of a prominent businessman accused of robbing her family, on charges he described as “fabricated” at trial, has attributed credit for his acquittal to non-governmental organizations. governmental organizations (NGOs).
Anil Balachandani said such organizations “work around the clock” to help foreign workers in distress, and paid a special tribute to the Humanitarian Organization for the Economics of Migration, or HOME, which first approached him to represent Liyani left at the end of 2017.
Since December 2016, when she was arrested, Parti has been protected by HOME, who also found her a guarantor. The Indonesian had been sentenced in March last year by a district court to more than two years in prison on four counts of robbery, but was acquitted of all charges by the High Court last week.
In a video interview with HOME, posted on the NGO’s website on Wednesday (September 9), Anil said: “Lawyers like me who work on pro-bono matters do some work, but the real work is done. many of these NGOs do. “
He added: “That is the real … exhausting activity: meeting with (migrant workers) every week, every month, giving them that … hope that something good can happen.”
Anil had been praised by High Court Judge Chan Seng Onn in the final paragraph of his 100-page written judgment on the case.
Among other things, Judge Chan said of the lawyer: “His written submissions were detailed and with good footnotes; his arguments were persuasive; He carefully explored all aspects of the prosecution case and examined the voluminous evidence in the transcripts to clearly mount his client’s defense both at trial and on appeal; analyzed in great detail the grounds for the decision of the trial judge to present them on the areas in which the trial judge had made a mistake in his conclusions; He handled all of these matters without help and had shown a lot of dedication in his pro-bono work on this case. “
In a statement posted on his website after the acquittal, Anil’s Red Lion Circle firm, of which he is the managing owner, said: “Most of the work was done and continues to be done by non-governmental organizations, working day and night. night, weekday and weekend, to comfort, advance and assist foreign domestic workers, foreign workers and others in distress.
“There are many more Parti Liyanis languishing in shelters and in our prisons to whose attention, as a nation, we should turn. HOME deserves more, or almost all of the credit with respect to Parti Liyani’s acquittal. “
In his video interview with HOME, Anil explained some challenges he faced with the case. The interview was conducted last month after the appeal hearings concluded, but before the acquittal was delivered.
‘We were facing tough prosecutors, a prominent family’
Parti was initially charged with stealing a total of 144 items worth $ 50,000 from the former chairman of the Changi Airport Group, Liew Mun Leong, his son Karl, his daughter Cheng May, and Karl’s wife, Heather.
She was found guilty by District Judge Olivia Low, who changed the value of the stolen items to $ 34,000, following a 20-day trial, which took place between April 2018 and January of last year.
Anil told HOME: “It was a very, very difficult test, not just because we knew it was going to last 10 months. It was a very difficult and lengthy test due to the large number of elements we had to deal with.
“And I didn’t have any assistants, so I had to rely on a well-managed or well-accounted set of documents, (and) understand Parti’s instructions clearly. We were up against a very tough group of (three) prosecutors. We were also facing a very prominent family, “he added.
The lawyer pointed out that the appeal was also long, with hearings lasting three days in total, which were held in November last year, February and August.
Anil said that every allegedly misappropriated item had to be explained, “and we basically had to convince a (Superior Court) judge that, look, why would someone steal garbage?”
In fact, Judge Chan found that many of the allegedly stolen items were old and displayed “some form of dysfunction.” Said the judge: “It is quite unusual, to say the least, that Parti steals mainly items that were apparently damaged, broken or worthless to their alleged owners.”
However, the length of the criminal trial was not the longest for Anil, an eight-year-old lawyer who graduated with a postgraduate degree in law from Singapore Management University in 2012; He was previously a professional engineer for eight years, having completed his undergraduate studies in electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
In 2017, Anil obtained the acquittal of SMRT bus driver Zhang Kun, a Chinese national, who was charged with speeding and losing control of the 700A bus service at a hairpin turn on the Bukit Timah Expressway slip road. towards Dairy Farm Road. One passenger died while another was injured. Zhang’s trial on two counts of causing death and endangering life by reckless act lasted 26 days and lasted for three years.
Parti Liyani (right) and his lawyer Anil Balchandani before the state courts on September 8, 2020 (PHOTO: Yahoo News Singapore / Wan Ting Koh)
An injustice if foreign workers plead guilty for convenience
In his interview with HOME, Anil also spoke about the need to better protect foreign workers. In December last year, there were more than 1.42 million foreigners working here, according to data from the Labor Ministry. Of these, 261,900 were domestic workers and 341,400 were under construction.
“I always had the impression that when you have about a million people here who are foreign domestic workers and foreign workers without proper representation, I mean on a political level, you are going to have problems in the future … with our justice system. , where foreign domestic workers or foreign workers simply don’t know what they are up against; they don’t know who to turn to, ”he said.
He noted that these workers may feel that it is convenient to apologize and plead guilty to an alleged crime, so that they can be sent home, “which is what they really want after a while of being accused and interrogated.” But this is an injustice, said the lawyer.
“I think as we move forward, and as we move a little further as a nation, we need to realize that the system, as we envision it, does not suit these unrepresented people, and I’m talking about people without political representation.” Anil said.
“And the reason I say that is that, with the proper representation, these themes are heard naturally, but without this representation you don’t know, until something terrible happens.”
The HOME interview can be viewed here.
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