How can a Permanent Resident of S'pore be a District Court Judge?

[Sammyboy RSS Feed]

An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Shouldn't this kind of high positions be held by singaporeans or naturalized citizens. Even the malaysian born MPs convert to citizenship. How come a district court judge need only be a PR?

A Malaysian law professor, embroiled in a sex-for-grades scandal, has lost his bid to have his Singapore permanent resident status reviewed after it was revoked last year, reports The Straits Times today.

Tey Tsun Hang lost his PR status when he left the country without a re-entry permit (REP).

The former National University of Singapore (NUS) lecturer had been convicted in June 2013 of corruptly obtaining sex and gifts, including a Mont Blanc pen and an iPod, from his former student Darinne Ko, as an inducement to give her better grades.

Tey, 43, was accused of "clearly and systematically" taking advantage of Ko and had even impregnated her.

Tey was sentenced to five months' jail and after shortly after appealing against both his conviction and sentence, left Singapore.

Yesterday, the Straits Times said, the High Court threw out Tey’s appeal for the Immigration authorities to reconsider his PR status and process his application to renew his REP.

The court called the appeal “an abuse of the court process”, with justice Quentin Loh pointing out Tey's lengthy delay in filing the court application and failure to appeal to the home affairs minister after his PR status was revoked, as reasons to throw out the case.

Loh had also said it was the Immigration authorities’ right not to grant REPs automatically and that a PR, who was under probe or has been charged, convicted or appealing against a conviction, was generally not granted an REP until after the case.

Tey had been a PR since 1997 and had worked as a former district judge. He left the island republic in October 2013 via the Tuas checkpoint without a REP. Immigration officers there had informed him that he would lose his PR status if he left without the REP, said the paper.

Loh said Tey had also failed to visit the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) headquarters to obtain a one-month extension of his REP.

"It was Tey's unexplained refusal to visit (ICA) on October 14 (a day before he left the country), pay the very modest fee and obtain the REP that led him to be without the REP," Loh was quoted as saying after rejecting Tey’s call for the court to order ICA to consider and process his application for the REP.

Tey was sacked from his job last year and a decision is pending on whether the court should give him permission to apply for judicial review of the sacking from NUS, the daily reported. – December 4, 2014.


Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.