Lee Suet Fern and a Will.

Disbar Lee Suet Fern? Isn’t that using a tomahawk blade to mow a lawn?

This is a serious sanction. 37 years of practice, and for one infraction, you may be struck off. Law Society is actually asking for that for her handling of her late father-in-law’s seventh and last will. 

I guess it had never crossed the mind of LKY that his testamentary wishes from the grave would have brought so much distress (legal and emotional) to his family, that is, the ones he (and his wife) had been protecting over their lifetime. 

I guess it all comes down to this: Is LKY of sound mind in 2013 when he executed his last and final will? 

Prof Woon said that to characterise LKY at that time to be a “doddering old dotard” and “being taken advantage of by his son and daughter-in-law” is unfounded. There is just no conclusive medical proof of that, and no DSM category for that too. What does “a doddering old dotard” even mean from a legal standpoint, and in relation to his mental capacity to sign his own will? 

Short of a full trial, examining evidence and witnesses, none is the wiser when it comes to judging whether he had signed his will under mental incapacity or duress, or he didn’t comprehend what he was signing. 

Anyway, that ship has sailed for now since no one has come forward to contest the last will. And here is what was reported. 

“Noting that the will’s validity has not been contested by the executors or beneficiaries, CJ Menon said: “The only question before us pertains to whether (Mrs Lee) was in a solicitor-client relationship, and if she was, whether she discharged her duties, and if she wasn’t, whether there was some other aspect of her conduct that was unacceptable.”

So, in her defence, Prof Woon said that as LKY’s daughter-in-law, how could she have even asked him to get independent advice considering his formidable intellectual capacity at that time. 

Prof Woon said: “(LKY) would have exploded. The sound of the explosion would have been heard all the way to the Istana.” he said. “Mr Lee Kuan Yew, a "brilliant lawyer" himself, could not have been taken advantage of.”

Lesson? Just one. 

Well, to borrow that expression, the sound of explosion had in my view gone to Parliament once for this case of sibling rivalry. That explosion then reverberated over social media for years to come, in the courts for a contempt proceedings, during the recent GE 2020 when LHY dropped a bombshell, and it is now heard just as loud in the court of three judges on a disciplinary matter, with LSF being liable to be struck off. 

Many things have been said about this case, and many more will be said, for it is a family drama that has played out in the public view of not just Singaporeans, but the world at large. 

It started with a “demolition”, so to speak, and I guess that is aptly, if not ironically, symbolic of how the saga has unfolded, that is, it has been a legal and political minefield that kept triggering off every now and then.

 

Alas, the timing of the sibling rivalry and all that has happened between them, especially the family of LHY, is most unfortunate, and deeply uncanny. 

Senior Counsel Kenneth Tan made this pointed observation regarding LSF’s role as first a kin rather than a lawyer to LKY, arguing that her role is purely administrative since LKY had already made up his mind about changing the will.

He said: “Before you’re a lawyer, you’re a son or daughter. The rules are not that of this court or any court. Love, affection and familial relationships have got nothing to do with these cold courts and they should not be scrutinised here.”

True, “love, affection and familial relationships have got nothing to do with these cold courts”, but at times, hell has no fury like a family member scorned, spurned and/or sidelined. 

I guess by now, it would be most familiar to us that the intensity of emotions, whether positive or negative, corresponds directly in proportion to the closeness (or familiarity) of the relationship. That is, the closer they are, the more explosive a dispute will be. 

Just as lovers locked in a wedding vows are prepared to donate an organ to another without condition, when it comes to a separation or divorce, you can expect the acrimony between parties to wish another the worse of personal fortunes. 

So, it is sadly the case here with this saga. It has torn the family apart, caused one family to stay out of their birth country, and possibly risks a disbarment over what the defence has described as fundamentally an expression of “love, affection and familial relationships”. 

But then, that is precisely what exacerbates (and perpetuates) the acrimony, and turns siblings into enemies, friends into foes and lovers into adversaries.