VANG SHUIMING v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Facts

Mr Vang Shuiming was arrested on 15 August 2023 in an investigation into money-laundering and forgery offences. He faced one charge under s 471, punishable under s 465 of the Penal Code, and four charges under s 54(1)(c) of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act 1992 (CDSA). After a period of remand for investigations, which the High Court had refused to revoke in an earlier revision, the Prosecution sought to have bail refused. It relied on affidavits of the lead investigator, Mr Teh Yee Liang. At a bail review hearing on 29 September 2023, a District Judge denied him bail.

Mr Vang brought Criminal Revision No 6 of 2023, asking the High Court to use its revisionary powers under s 401 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (CPC) to revoke the order denying bail and to grant him bail. The Prosecution's case was that he was a flight risk and that there was a risk of collusion. Among other things, it claimed that he was wanted by the Chinese authorities for illegal online gambling activities. Mr Vang argued that the Prosecution relied on bare assertions, that the District Judge did not properly consider his family ties and his offer to accept strict bail conditions, and that the risk of collusion was irrelevant to bail. The judgment was delivered ex tempore.

Issues

1. Whether the District Judge erred in relying on the investigator's affidavits to find that the applicant was a flight risk
2. Whether the applicant's family ties in Singapore and offer of restrictive bail conditions answered the flight risk
3. Whether the risk of collusion is a relevant consideration in deciding bail and was made out
4. Whether the refusal of bail caused serious injustice warranting revision

Holding

The High Court dismissed the application. There was nothing palpably wrong in the District Judge's order, and the threshold of serious injustice for the exercise of the revisionary power under s 401 of the CPC was not met.

Reasoning

The High Court intervenes on revision only where something palpably wrong in the decision below causes serious injustice, and grants bail on revision only on that basis. Bail proceedings are summary and commonly decided on affidavit evidence, so requiring corroboration beyond the investigator's affidavit would be unduly onerous. The assertions were not bare: the statutory maximum signals how seriously Parliament views an offence, and the four CDSA charges concerned sums totalling more than $2.4 million, which could hardly be called low. The investigator was constrained by ongoing investigations. Four charges were non-bailable, so the onus was on Mr Vang to show that bail should be granted, and simply calling the evidence bare assertions without rebutting it was unsatisfactory.

The claim of deep roots in Singapore was a mischaracterisation. He and his family had lived here only since 2019, and he was neither a citizen nor a permanent resident. He held passports from Turkey, China and Vanuatu, which had been seized, and it was undisputed that he had a Cambodian passport whose whereabouts were unknown. He accepted that he obtained passports through donations and financial contributions. With significant assets abroad not subject to seizure orders and an investigative finding that substantial cryptocurrency assets belonging to him had moved after his arrest, electronic tagging, watchlisting or round-the-clock surveillance were not infallible and did not meet the risk.

The risk of collusion was a relevant factor under the case law, including Yang Yin. Section 95(1) of the CPC lists situations in which bail must be refused but does not limit the grounds on which it may be refused. The investigator's evidence of his close association with two other accused persons and links to wanted individuals showed a risk of collusion, and withholding names during ongoing investigations was reasonable.

The court added that a further bail application would be viewed with great reluctance unless there was a material change in circumstances or new facts.

From the judgment