In my thirties, despite having a clutch of capital punishment trials under my belt, and arguing matters in the Court of Appeal, I had not yet done any capital punishment appeals at the Federal Court. That changed one afternoon when a letter came in the Court of Appeal inviting me to be appointed counsel for a drug trafficking appeal. It was an appeal against conviction and sentence. My client was a Malay man in his …
I call such cases ‘sitters’. I don’t often get sitters. Rarely, actually. But that’s fine with me. On the regular, I’d prefer not to do sitters. If I did, I would be doing straightforward debt claims, such as credit card and housing loan claims, orders for sale and the like. The ‘losers’ too; these are cases which are a ‘sure lose’. On the regular, I prefer the 50/50s, the 60/40s, the 70/30s, even the 80/20s …
There was an occasion when I saw Amer open his cross-examination on an investigating officer (IO) in a case we did together with Amer’s partner, Edmund Bon, in Ampang many years ago. It’s a tale I tell in my advocacy tutorials when the occasion calls for it. But first, his questions: “Inspector, you have been thorough with your investigations?” “Yes.” “Is there anything you would do differently?” “No.” “You are satisfied with your investigations?” “Yes.” …
Jun Kit was recommended to me by a friend who saw my call out for artists on social media. I checked out his portfolio and liked the impressionistic feel of his art. I particularly liked his logo designs – I had come across the Queer Lapis design before and thought it very clever. It was only then that I knew Jun Kit was the artist. Incidentally, he was also commissioned to the LoyarBurok Training logo …
Amer Hamzah and I took our Certificate of Legal Practice (‘CLP’) course at the University of Malaya (UM) when they used to run it. The time we took it was the second last time they held the course there, 1997-1998. The course was conducted by a mixture of UM lecturers and part-time practicing lawyers. They varied in quality from the amazingly good to the indifferent perfunctory performance; in quantity, the latter outnumbered the former. Amer …