A Judge of Appeal has allowed a foreign worker to retract his guilty plea to a charge of submitting false claims for a workplace injury, noting that he could have pleaded guilty under the mistaken impression that he was accused of giving the wrong date of the purported accident when prosecutors were actually disputing that the incident occurred at all.

Setting aside the conviction and directing the case to be tried, the judge also pointed out the time pressure placed on Bangladeshi worker Md Rafiqul Islam Abdul Aziz, 29, on whether to plead guilty or to contest the amended charges.

Md Rafiqul was charged with making false compensation claims for injuries sustained at work and making false statements to investigating officers regarding the matter. He claimed that he injured his left knee sometime in May 2013 after falling off a ladder at work.

He was convicted on June 30 this year, with mitigation and sentencing to take place the next day, but on July 1, he informed the district court that he wished to qualify or retract his guilty plea.

The district judge disallowed it because he found the request to be “an afterthought”, and sentenced the foreign worker to four weeks’ jail.

Md Rafiqul served his sentence immediately and was repatriated from Singapore on July 22.

In a written judgment made public last Thursday, Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin ruled that this was a case where the High Court should invoke its powers of revision to set aside guilty pleas.

However, he acknowledged that such powers of revision are to be executed sparingly and “only to remedy a serious injustice”.

Noting that the district judge had been troubled by the accused’s behaviour and was concerned that allowing a retraction of his plea would delay the timely disposal of the case, Justice Chao said: “The critical questions are still whether (the accused) had understood the nature of the proceeded charge, whether he intended to plead guilty to the charge voluntarily, and whether the facts as he had advanced qualified his plea of guilt. While judicial time is precious ... justice should not be compromised on that account.”

Md Rafiqul’s plea of guilt — which came only after charges were amended by the prosecution — could be because of the “wrong impression” given to him, the judge added. “It is plausible that ... a young Bangladeshi foreign worker unfamiliar with the Singapore legal system could have thought that he was being charged for giving the wrong date of the accident to the MOM (Ministry of Manpower),” Justice Chao said.

It is the court’s “paramount duty” to ensure that an accused “knowingly and unreservedly intends to plead guilty to the charge and admit the truth of the allegations”, he said.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers is awaiting dates for a pre-trial conference and is reviewing with the MOM whether the charges against Md Rafiqul should be dropped.

Justice Chao stressed that in cases where attempts to retract a plea happen after an accused has been sentenced, a “higher threshold” would have to be met before the court exercises its revisionary powers.

“An accused ought not to be allowed to mount a ‘back-door appeal’ against a conviction and sentence just because he is unhappy with the sentenced imposed,” he said.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by KELLY NG

If you have any stories or news that you would like to share with the global online community, please feel free to share it with us by contacting us directly at [email protected]