ATTORNEY-GENERAL v SHANMUGAM MANOHAR & Anor

Facts

Mr Shanmugam Manohar, an advocate and solicitor admitted on 9 February 1994 and a partner of K Krishna & Partners, was referred by the Attorney-General to the Law Society on 2 July 2018 for alleged touting. According to the referral, he paid Mr Ng Kin Kok $600 or $800 per case for clients Mr Ng referred to the firm. A first Disciplinary Tribunal found the charges proved, but the Court of Three Judges set that aside because statements from criminal investigations had been wrongly admitted, and directed a fresh tribunal to hear the complaint.

Before the second tribunal (DT/23/2022), the Law Society tried to compel Mr Ng and a partner of the firm, Mr Krishna, to testify. Personal service of attendance orders failed. The High Court and the tribunal each held that the other was the right body to order substituted service, and the tribunal refused the application three days before the hearing. With no evidence on the touting charges, the tribunal found no case to answer on them; Mr Manohar admitted three lesser charges and a $3,000 penalty was found sufficient. The Attorney-General's review application, HC/OA 541/2023, was dismissed, and he appealed in Civil Appeal No 18 of 2024.

Issues

1. Whether a Disciplinary Tribunal's statutory duty to hear and investigate a matter requires it to use its case management powers to facilitate the production of evidence.
2. Whether the second tribunal failed to discharge that duty on the touting charges.
3. Whether a fresh tribunal should be appointed to hear the touting charges.

Holding

The Court of Appeal allowed the Attorney-General's appeal, set aside the second tribunal's findings on the touting charges, and ordered the Law Society to apply to the Chief Justice for another Disciplinary Tribunal to hear and investigate the matter, with no order as to costs.

Reasoning

Under the Legal Profession Act, a tribunal must both hear and investigate, and each word must carry its own meaning. Proceedings remain adversarial: a tribunal is not a prosecutor, must not descend into the arena, and need not gather evidence on its own motion. But given the public interest in regulating lawyers, the duty to investigate calls for proactive case management. Where relevant, material evidence exists and is available, a party intends to adduce it but faces procedural difficulty, and the tribunal knows of both, it must help facilitate the evidence. The matter referred is not confined to the evidence the parties place before it.

The tribunal knew from the earlier proceedings and the Law Society's filings that Mr Ng and Mr Krishna were the only witnesses on the alleged payments, and knew of the failed attempts to serve them. After refusing substituted service, it should at least have explored an adjournment or invited submissions on one; instead it stayed passive and the touting charges ended with no evidence at all. Its proceedings were therefore irregular. The court agreed that only the High Court could order substituted service, and that the tribunal's earlier refusal to comment on a hypothetical question was not an error.

Though a third tribunal would be burdensome for Mr Manohar, alleged touting is serious and could attract disbarment, he had offered no alternative account, evidence had not been lost, and he had been able to keep practising. The public interest favoured a fresh hearing. The Law Society, acting in its regulatory role without bad faith, should not bear costs.

From the judgment