Wei Kiat's Blog

Lawyer M. Ravi suspended a year for rudeness
Among other things, he turned his back to district judge in court

LAWYER M. Ravi, who has made the news as much for his behaviour as for the causes he champions, has been suspended from practising for a year for being rude to a district judge.

A Court of Three Judges, the legal profession's highest disciplinary body, handed down the suspension yesterday after a hearing that was marked by more of the 37-year-old's erratic behaviour. After Mr Ravi had paced around the court and interrupted the judges several times, Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong told him: 'I hope that... you will find peace, examine yourself and hopefully, one year later, when you come back, you will become a lawyer that we want to see in this court.'

CJ Chan called it an extraordinary case. No lawyer has come before the court with five previous transgressions.

Last year, Mr Ravi admitted before a disciplinary committee that in October 2003, he had turned his back to the judge while being addressed, interrupted proceedings and responded to the judge in an unbecoming manner.

Since 2000, Mr Ravi has been fined or reprimanded five times by various committees for misconduct, but yesterday was the first time he appeared before the court.

He began the proceedings by declaring that he had not slept in two days and asked for time to organise himself. He then meticulously arranged his stationery and files and rubbed powder on his face as Mr Mirza Mohamed Namazie, counsel for the Law Society, addressed the court.

During his submissions, Mr Ravi proclaimed that he has 'never taken a single cent' from his clients while lawyers were 'taking money and running away'.

He also exclaimed: 'Why are you persecuting me like this?'

When the hearing was adjourned for the judges to deliberate, Mr Ravi hummed a few tunes and made loud remarks.

When the session resumed, he paced back and forth and repeatedly interrupted CJ Chan, earning himself several warnings.

When CJ Chan told him to stand at one point, he retorted: 'How long do you want me to stand? I'm very weak. Do you want me to collapse here?'

At one point, Mr Ravi blurted out: 'I have no respect for the judiciary and the legal profession.' But CJ Chan continued.

He said: 'Instead of making a proper mitigation speech, what we have heard this morning is a series of irrelevant and irrational arguments... It's very distressing for me to hear this kind of argument from you.'

Mr Ravi studied law in Britain and has been practising since 1997. He runs his own firm.

He first made headlines in 2003 for exchanging heated words with a High Court judge while seeking a re-trial for a drug trafficker condemned to hang.

Since then, he has championed human rights issues, often using unorthodox methods, such as getting the sons of a drug trafficker to hand out leaflets in a bid to earn their father a reprieve from execution.

Recently, he missed a string of court appearances after he was admitted to a private psychiatric hospital.

Isn't it a coincident that people championing for human rights in Singapore are such weirdos?

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