What was decided in Magendran Muniandy v Public Prosecutor [2024] SGCA 23?

In [2024] SGCA 23, decided on 30 July 2024, the Court of Appeal (Sundaresh Menon CJ, Tay Yong Kwang JCA and Steven Chong JCA) considered CA/CM 10/2024, which it found was in substance an attempt to appeal a High Court judge's refusal to recuse himself in Mr Muniandy's matters.

Why was Magendran Muniandy convicted in the underlying case?

According to [2024] SGCA 23, Mr Magendran Muniandy, a 35-year-old Malaysian national, had been convicted and sentenced to 20 weeks' imprisonment by a district judge in Public Prosecutor v Magendran Muniandy [2023] SGDC 150 for knowingly furnishing forged documents, and his subsequent appeal and fresh-evidence application were dismissed.

[2024] SGCA 23 — MAGENDRAN MUNIANDY v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

SUPREME COURT OF SINGAPORE

30 July 2024

Case summary

Magendran Muniandy v Public Prosecutor [2024] SGCA 23

Court of Appeal of the Republic of Singapore — Criminal Motion No 10 of 2024

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Decision of the Court of 3 Supreme Court Judges (delivered by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon):

The applicant, Mr Magendran Muniandy (“Mr Muniandy”), was convicted of three counts of knowingly furnishing forged documents to the Ministry of Education (the “MOE”) and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (the “ICA”) at trial and sentenced to 20 weeks’ imprisonment. His appeal to the High Court against his conviction and sentence (“MA 9108”) was dismissed by the High Court judge (the “Judge”). Subsequently, he was also unsuccessful in his application to the Judge seeking that the Judge recuse himself from hearing any matter relating to Mr Muniandy. The present application before the Court of Appeal (“CA”), CA/CM 10/2024 (“CM 10”), was in substance an attempt to “appeal” against the Judge’s dismissal of his recusal application. CM 10 was one of the many applications that has been brought by Mr Muniandy.

Pertinent and significant points of the judgment

• The CA observed that judges are expected to come prepared for hearings. This inevitably includes a judge having read the relevant submissions, evidence, and other materials. This may mean that judges will, in some instances, have formed a view of the merits of the case or lack thereof. They may even have prepared draft remarks which reflect their views. None of this preparation is objectionable as long as judges keep an open mind. That means that they remain able to be persuaded to come to a different view, until the time their decision is given. This is normal because judges are trained to keep an open mind: at [32].

• The CA observed that there can be no expectation by parties of what a judge’s decision should contain, save that it should be sufficient to enable a reader to understand why the judge decided the way he did. The Judge’s decision in this regard was found to be clear in explaining why MA 9108 was dismissed: at [34].

• The CA found that there was no conflict of interest between the Judge and the district judge who presided over the trial below on the basis of the Judge’s position as the Presiding Judge of the State Courts. There was no conflict of interest simply because the district judge might have a reporting line to the Judge. There was no relationship of any kind between the Judge and the district judge which could reasonably give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest: at [43]–[44].

Background to the appeal and the material facts

1 Mr Muniandy is a 35-year-old Malaysian national who had been awarded a tuition grant by the MOE in 2008 for his undergraduate studies at the National University of Singapore (“NUS”). As part of the MOE Tuition Grant Agreement, he had to serve a bond with the MOE upon graduating which required that he had to be employed in Singapore for a minimum of three years. He had served his bond through his employment by the Life Sciences Institute of NUS for three years from 2014 to 2017 and had been issued an employment pass (“EP”) for this purpose. After his three years of employment with NUS, his EP expired. He applied for and received a long-term visit pass (“LTVP”) on 31 August 2017 that was valid for one year. A year later, he applied for an extension of his LTVP, and it was in connection with this that he was charged with knowingly furnishing certain forged documents to the MOE and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

2 After the trial, the district judge found that Mr Muniandy had forged three documents and used those documents as genuine in his application for the extension of his LTVP. In summary, he attempted to portray to the MOE that he had not served his bond in order to garner support from the MOE for his application to the ICA to extend his LTVP. The first document was an image of the back of the LTVP purportedly issued by the ICA to Mr Muniandy with the dates of issue and of expiry falsely represented. The image was presented to the MOE to obtain a letter of support for an extension of the LTVP. The second document was a forged letter of acknowledgement purportedly issued by NUS which was presented to the MOE to obtain its support for an extension of the LTVP. The third document was a forged letter of support purportedly issued by MOE which was presented to ICA to obtain its support for Mr Muniandy’s application for an extension of his LTVP. Mr Muniandy was convicted and sentenced to 20 weeks’ imprisonment by the district judge.

3 Mr Muniandy filed MA 9108, an appeal against his conviction and sentence, as well as an application (“CM 83”) to adduce fresh evidence to support his appeal in MA 9108. Both were dismissed by the Judge. Subsequently, Mr Muniandy brought various applications, including one for the recusal of the Judge from hearing or deciding any matter filed in relation to MA 9108. The latter was dismissed, and CM 10 was brought in substance to “appeal” against its dismissal.

Decision on appeal

4 The following issues arose for the CA’s determination:

a. Whether there was a legal basis for Mr Muniandy to bring CM 10 as an appeal against the Judge’s dismissal of his recusal application.

b. Assuming that Mr Muniandy has a legal basis for bringing CM 10, whether there was merit to his contention that the Judge had conducted the matter improperly and/or should have recused himself from hearing MA 9108.

Whether there was a legal basis for CM 10 to be brought

5 Since there was no merit at all in the recusal application, there was no need for the CA to consider whether an appeal could be brought against the Judge’s dismissal of the recusal application: at [28].

Whether the Judge had conducted the matter improperly and/or should have recused himself from hearing MA 9108

6 The CA found that Mr Muniandy had not raised any grounds which evidenced any pre-judgment or improper conduct of MA 9108: at [30]–[31].

7 The CA rejected Mr Muniandy’s suggestion that the Judge must have prejudged the matter because he could not have otherwise composed his decision in 15 minutes. The CA observed that judges were expected to come prepared for their hearings. This entailed reading up on the relevant submissions, evidence and other materials beforehand. After preparation, some judges may have formed a view of the merits of the case, or lack thereof, and may have prepared draft remarks that reflect their views on their understanding of the case at that time. Such conduct is not objectionable as long as the judges keep an open mind such that they remain open to being persuaded to come to a different view, until a decision has been given. Judges are trained keep an open mind: at [32].

8 Mr Muniandy had not shown anything to suggest that the Judge had a closed mind. The Judge demonstrated patience by affording him much time for oral arguments and allowed him to supplement them with a set of slides. Mr Muniandy also submitted 49 pages of written submissions. Altogether, the Judge was not closed to Mr Muniandy making his case as best he could: at [32].

9 Parties can have no expectation as to what a judge’s decision should contain, save that it should be sufficient to enable a reader to understand why the judge decided the way he did. There is much to be said in favour of judges keeping their decisions concise, succinct and relevant because this makes for better understanding and saves judicial time and resources. It was found that the Judge’s decision was clear in explaining the reasons why MA 9108 was dismissed: at [34].

10 It was found that Mr Muniandy’s allegations of excessive judicial interference and unreasonable time constraints were untrue and baseless. The Judge had allowed Mr Muniandy to go through his prepared slides. The Judge did not interrupt him, allowing him to speak extensively, with only two brief interjections to remind him to be mindful of his remaining time. The Judge had given Mr Muniandy extra time without his requesting it, and then some more after Mr Muniandy subsequently asked for more time. Altogether, the CA found that the Judge had been very patient with Mr Muniandy and had tried to prompt him constructively so that his oral submissions could be more directly: at [36]–[40].

11 The appeal was not against the merits of the Judge’s dismissal of MA 9108. In any event, the CA observed that these points were irrelevant to the issue at hand: at [41]–[42].

12 There was no conflict of interest simply because the district judge might have a reporting line to the Judge simply because the latter had the position as the Presiding Judge of the State Courts. The Judge was not personally related to the district judge in any way, nor did he have any personal interest in the matter. There was no relationship of any kind between the Judge and the district judge which could reasonably give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest: at [43]–[44]

Conclusion

13 Pursuant to s 238B(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (2020 Rev Ed), CM 10 was dismissed summarily because it had been brought without any basis.

This summary is provided to assist in the understanding of the Court’s grounds of decision. It is not intended to be a substitute for the reasons of the Court. All numbers in bold font and square brackets refer to the corresponding paragraph numbers in the Court’s grounds of decision.

MAGENDRAN MUNIANDY v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

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What was decided in Magendran Muniandy v Public Prosecutor [2024] SGCA 23?

Why was Magendran Muniandy convicted in the underlying case?

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