High Court highlights district judge’s failure to provide own analysis in judgment

A district judge’s use of substantial portions of the prosecution’s submissions in his judgment without his own analysis has been flagged by the High Court as a serious concern.

High Court judge Aidan Xu said in a written judgment issued on Dec 3 that the district judge had failed to apply his mind to the material before him in the case of a taxi driver who was convicted of molesting a teenage girl.

The taxi driver – 44-year-old Ler Chun Poh – was convicted in October 2023 and sentenced to eight months’ jail.

Justice Xu, whose judgment came after hearing an appeal by the taxi driver against his conviction and sentence, set aside the district judge’s decision and decided the entire case afresh.

Ultimately, he concluded that there was no apparent bias, and arrived at the same outcome.

Justice Xu did not name the lower court judge, as is the practice in appellate court judgments. A check showed that the trial judge was District Judge Soh Tze Bian.

This is the second time the judicial officer’s conduct has been publicly highlighted.

In September 2023, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said Judge Soh’s conduct in reproducing large chunks of the prosecution’s submissions in his written grounds of decision was “wholly unsatisfactory as a matter of judicial practice”.

In the current case, Ler was accused of molesting a 17-year-old girl three times in his taxi on the pretext of helping her put on or remove her seatbelt.

Ler had spotted the girl waiting at a bus stop in Choa Chu Kang on Oct 29, 2021.

He offered her a free ride after she said she was going to a nearby carpark. She believed she had left her phone in a car from car-sharing service BlueSG that was parked in the area.

When she failed to find the car, Ler offered to drop her off nearby, and she boarded the taxi again, sitting in the front passenger seat.

Ler said he did not touch her.

He also insisted that the teenager had created a “good chance” of molestation.

He asserted that although he was given many chances by her, he did not “concede to her advancing” and had escaped “such allurement” because he was not interested in her.

Judge Soh found him guilty of all three charges after a nine-day trial. After Ler was convicted and sentenced, he appealed to the High Court.

At the first hearing of the appeal in April 2024, Justice Xu raised concerns that the trial judge’s written grounds of decision bore a number of similarities to the prosecution’s trial submissions.

Both the defence and prosecution later put in further arguments on the similarities and the possible recourse.

In his judgment, Justice Xu noted that judges are entrusted with the task of deciding cases.

This requires that they weigh the parties’ arguments, scrutinise the evidence and interpret and apply the law in coming to a decision.

He said a side-by-side comparison of the trial judge’s decision on conviction and the prosecution’s trial submissions clearly showed that they were “replete with similarities”. 

Significant parts of the district judge’s decision replicate the substantive reasoning, mirror the structure, and adopt similar word and stylistic choices as in the prosecution’s trial submissions.

“The (district) judge could be said to have exhibited an almost unwavering adherence to both the substance and form of the prosecution’s trial submissions,” he said.

In spite of the district judge’s failure to judiciously consider the material before him, Justice Xu said there were no circumstances that gave rise to a reasonable suspicion or apprehension of bias.

He noted that the district judge had independently summarised Ler’s version of events. This showed that he did not shut his mind to Ler’s testimony.

A detailed analysis of the trial transcript also showed that the district judge gave leeway to Ler in his questioning of the victim and the prosecution’s witnesses.

Ler’s previous lawyer discharged himself midway through the trial.

Justice Xu acknowledged that Ler’s defence was “arguably rambling and tautological” and mostly meritless or irrelevant.

Nonetheless, the lack of merit or cogency was not a sufficient justification to replicate the other side’s submissions in full, he said.

After looking through the evidence, he found the victim’s testimony to be unusually convincing and well-corroborated, and there was no reason for her to fabricate the accusations.

He did not believe Ler’s assertions that he could have touched her “accidentally”.

Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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