Parti Liyani Part VII

Seems like we have our own Arab spring on local soil, that is, the spirit of it, not so much the magnitude. But then, you never know. 

To bring you up to speed, it is the case of the Maid taking down the Chairman. Now, Parti Liyani is going for the Prosecution of the case. She is seeking leave from the Court for an inquiry to be carried out into the conduct of two prosecutors. 

After 4 years of legal torment, having to put up in Home thereby being missed by loved ones at home, having to depend on the kindness of strangers for her daily expenses, relying on a lawyer who did her case pro bono, and having to face a nerve-wrecking conviction and sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment for all 4 charges of theft, Parti is now bringing her own blend of justice to the doorsteps of the AGC. 

The main issue with this case is largely fourfold: first, the alleged collusion of the Liew household; second, the chain of custody of evidence; third the accuracy of the recorded statements; and fourth, the sleight-of-hand of the prosecutors regarding the DVD evidence. 

You will note that it was a David and Goliath struggle because, at the court below, the judge (after hearing all the evidence for a trial that lasted more than 20 days) found the Liew household’s evidence to be “clear, compelling and consistent even under lengthy cross-examination by the counsel of the Defence”. 

She found “material inconsistencies” between Parti’s evidence and her statements to the police, and opined that the Prosecution “had proven the four charges beyond a reasonable doubt and convicted Parti.” 

Yet, on appeal, all that was overturned as much as the table now is turned around. Just as David struck with a sling and a stone, Parti with support from Home, a community and her pro bono lawyer, is asking for her 4 years back from those who have taken it away from her with suspected collusion, breakage in the chain of custody of evidence, the taking of Parti’s statement without an interpreter, and the non-disclosure of relevant evidence that the DVD player was in fact defective at the trial, thereby prejudicing Parti in her reply at cross-examination. 

Alas, at this juncture, I am reminded of what CJ Menon once said: -

“Prosecutors are more than advocates and solicitors. They are “ministers of justice” assisting in the administration of justice. As a “minister of justice”, the duty of the prosecutor is to assist the court to arrive at the correct decision. It is neither the prosecutor’s duty to secure a conviction at all costs nor to “timorously discontinue proceedings the instant some weakness is found in their case.”” (PP v Wee Teong Boo @ para 136). 

CJ cited a few cases in support and wrote: -

“The accused, the Court and the community are entitled to expect that in performing his function in presenting the case against an accused person, the Prosecutor will act with fairness and detachment with the sole and unadulterated objective to establish the whole truth in accordance with the law...The role of the Prosecutor therefore excludes any notion of winning or losing a case...His role is to seek and achieve justice, and not mere to convict. The role is to be discharged with an ingrained sense of dignity and integrity.”

But this case has indeed stirred the social/economic justice waters more than one would have liked to. The Goliath on one side was so-called justice personified, with influential Snr Liew saying that it was his civic duty to report a crime. And with Liew junior asserting this at cross examination by Anil: -

“I put it to you that you were in favour of making this police report to falsely accused Parti of theft of several items.

A: I disagree, Your Honour. The police report was really my father’s decision. As far as I’m concern, it was really hassle to report to the police these items because what does it matter since we have recovered these items and we actually don’t wish for Parti Liyani to go to jail. If she---“

But Karl knew that Parti will nevertheless face jail time if convicted when such report is lodged with alleged items valued at tens of thousands of dollars. And yes, it is really a hassle for the Liews to cooperate with the police and prosecutors in their investigation and prosecution of Parti, but I believe the so-called “hassle” is far worse on Parti’s side, for lack of a better word/description, in the light of the acquittal. 

And the Goliath on the same side also included the police taking their own sweet time to secure the evidence of the alleged stolen items. Mind you, after the report lodged (on 30 Oct 2016), it took five weeks to document the items alleged to be stolen, and another 18 months to receive the items into police custody, during such time, the evidence risks being contaminated. 

This is further compounded with the following comments by Judge Chan on appeal about the failure to provide Parti with proper interpretation: -

“On the stand, Parti testified that the interpreter translated the statement back to her in a mixture of Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia and hence there may have been some aspects of which she did not understand.”

“Parti also made various allegations, inter alia, that there were differences between what she had explained and what was recorded, and the interpreter was “talking too fast” such that Parti could not “understand everything”. 

This was directly contradicted by P31 which states at the end of the statement that it was read over back to Parti in Bahasa Indonesia and she had affirmed it to be correct and true, which puts paid to her allegations.”

The above appears to me to be justice on a rush, a kind of a happy meal justice, just to pacify its customers, instead of a justice “with the sole and unadulterated objective to establish the whole truth in accordance with the law.”

Then comes the prosecutors and the DVD issue. You can read it at your own time. But Justice Chan opined that “the Prosecutor’s sleight-of-hand technique...demonstrate in court that the Pioneer DVD player was working,” even when it was clearly “spoilt” as it could not play DVD, sadly shows how “happy meal justice” tends to lead to happy results only for some people in society, leaving the rest fighting for their lives, and everything they have, just to bring the justice that CJ Menon earlier talked about to proper light. 

Mind you, bringing such justice to light costs a lot of money and only the rich and powerful can afford them, while those who can’t afford will just have to accept their fate and serve their time, even though they might - like Parti - be acquitted strictly based on the proper standard of evidential rule in the rigorous way Justice Chan had applied it. 

In any event, if the prosecutors are “more than advocates and solicitors”, and are “ministers of justice”, then I guess it is important to ask (at the Parliamentary sessions next month) what, or who, if any, at the higher levels gave the assigned prosecutors such driven cause to pursue a maid all the way to the appellate court with such conviction to, well, maintain the conviction? 

Surely, the act of such pursuit of justice to establish the whole truth has to be an act known (and discussed with) by their supervising superiors right? And the evidence given by the Liews and the police in their cavalier way of securing and the custody of the evidence must also have been duly reviewed and scrutinised by the proper authority in the upper levels of AGC right? (Ironically, it appears that the hand that had pursued such justice is, or will be, the same hand that has been appointed (deputy AG) to review the whole process). 

For if “the role of the Prosecutor therefore excludes any notion of winning or losing a case,” then I hope, in Parliament next month, the elected ministers of parliament will hold the proper ministers of justice or justice system to account, regardless of whatever levels they may reside, and not to, as CJ puts it, “timorously discontinue proceedings (in Parliament) the instant some weakness is found in their case”, or in this case, to stop short at going to the commanding roots of the issue. 

After all said, let me just end with this cross-examination between Anil and Karl.

“Q: You know accusing somebody of steeling [sic] is a serious problem or matter, serious matter, correct?

A: That’s why we are here.

Q: And that is why, we are trying to establish, why you or your family after discarding items, would want to say, “Wait a second. Now I want that back.”

[emphasis added]

A: No, I don’t want it back. I want to report a crime. As the citizen a crime happens in my household, if it happened in the household, you don’t need to be a lawyer to say report it....

Q: And would you further like to concede that you trumped-up certain parts of this Police Report?

...

Q: Trumped-up.

A: Negative.

Q: So, that the police can take action immediately.

A: Negative.

Q: Why do I say that?

A: I don’t do these things. I have no---

Q: Because---

A: I no motivation to come up anything, to accuse anybody whose [sic] innocent. ...”

Well, with the above in mind, what can I say about the turn of events in the State versus Parti case? 

I guess I can only say that after proving her innocence, Parti is now lodging her own report to bring to justice those she thinks are guilty of (or responsible for) her 4-year legal woes. I believe, she like Karl has “no motivation to come up anything, to accuse anybody (who is) innocent...”.

 

And that seems to be the most apt narrative describing the recent turnaround, which was no doubt a hassle to Karl. But it was nevertheless a lived-through hell for Parti.

 

Parti Liyani Saga Part I

 

Hell seems to have no fury like a rich man being threatened. 

In the news is an acquittal of a domestic worker, Ms Parti Liyani, who had worked for the family of the chairman of the Changi Airport Group, Mr Liew Mum Leong, for about 9 years. This is thanks to her pro bono defence lawyer, Anil Balachandani, whose dedication to the case quite singlehandedly unravelled the loose threads of a highly suspicious charge of theft.

Now, Parti still has one more charge pending, “which is the possession of items, including wallets and ez-link cards, which are suspected to have been fraudulently obtained”. We will just have to leave that to the courts and the prosecution to deal with. 

However, the point of this post is about how something so trivial can snowball into something so sensational, occupying one full page in The Straits Times. 

From employer, they became the accusers, and after a trial that took weeks to complete, they became the accused, and that is based on these words by the High Judge: “There is reason to believe that the Liew family, upon realising her unhappiness, took the pre-emptive first step to terminate her employment suddenly without giving her sufficient time for her to pack, in the hope that Parti would not use the time to make a complaint to MOM.”

What complaint? 

Well, Parti had worked for the Liew family since 2007, and sometime in March 2016, when Liew junior (young master Karl Liew) moved out of the Chancery Lane family home to a house nearby, frequent clashes started between Karl and Parti. 

The clashes were centred on Karl demanding that Parti also tidy his home and his office. 

According to Parti, she had to clean his office once a week for about a year. Although she was paid for the extra work, which was alleged to be $20 on each occasion, Parti however asserted that she was only paid $10 “for two to three days of work, and the payment was not regular.”

The last straw was when Parti was asked to clean Karl’s home toilet. That led Parti to threaten to report the Liew family to MOM. It was that flake of snow that eventually snowballed into a court hearing that led to this appeal to the High Court, and a successful acquittal. 

This is what the High Court has to say about the judgment below: “I find that the judge’s eventual finding that the prosecution’s witnesses (which include Karl Liew) were largely credible with clear, compelling and consistent evidence, is simply unjustified and is, in my judgment, against the weight of the evidence.”

“Karl’s dishonesty on the stand was plainly evident from his testimony...The fact that Karl lied about particular items in the second amended charge does not only taint his credibility as a witness, but also affects the convictions for the items in the second charge that are premised on Karl’s testimony alone.”

What dishonesty?

Well, the theft charge was about stolen items from the Liew family home. But, to cut the long charge short, the judge noted that many of the items showed “some form of dysfunctionality.” 

By this, he meant that the alleged stolen items were discarded items by the Liews, and were discarded when Karl and his family moved out of the family home. “I do not get any impression that the Liew family would have the habit of keeping old, unwanted or spoilt items in the house and not discard them.”

However, the Liews turned that around to lodge a police report claiming that Parti had stolen from them, which the High Court Judge found hard to believe. 

As the trial revealed, many items like a DVD player, two watches, a Prada bag (worth $1000), a pair of Gucci sunglasses (worth $500), and some earrings, to name just a few, were in fact discarded items Parti picked out from the family trash bin. 

Other items like bed linen and bed sheets were purchased by Parti from Ikea. The High Court judge “found that (Karl) had fabricated his testimony about having purchased the bedsheet from Habitat in Britain.”

Still other items like kitchenware were also purchased by Parti, and she could give details of their prices and origins. “Karl’s testimony at trial was internally inconsistent and insufficient evidence has been provided to demonstrate that the utensils and kitchenware were purchased by Karl in the manner he had described,” the judge said. 

Lesson? Here’s the thing...if you read the news, you get a feel that it smacks of a gang-up of a wealthy family against their helpless domestic helper. 

Based on the contextual evidence, her threat to complain to MOM led them to fire her. The firing was to preempt her from reporting to MOM, for that would have brought disrepute to the family. 

Parti was given only two hours to pack, and no more. Parti was then sent back (to Indonesia). Before that, after she packed 3 boxes of her personal stuff, she requested her former employer to send the boxes back to her. Although Karl agreed to ship it back to her, he nevertheless opened the boxes and found all those allegedly stolen items. That was when they lodged the police report. 

The question is, did they really bother about the stuff in her boxes? Did they really care about it? That is, the watches, the clothes, the earrings, the bed linens and the DVD player? I suspect it is more likely a case where they, especially Karl, had allowed their personal vindictive feelings to carry things too far. Mind you, even to the extent of being dishonest in court by distorting/concealing facts just to ensure the innocent is punished. 

At every step of the way, before the police report, the Liew family could have given the matter more thought and mend fences or damage control, but they had missed the opportunity. Instead of being peacemaker, they unwittingly became peace-breaker. 

You see, what may have been done is done, that is, demanding that Parti clean Karl’s home and office, even his toilet, and paying her a meagre sum for it, but if they had just stuck to their promise to ship her things back, and let matter rest, this public fiasco might have all been avoided altogether. 

And it may even be the case that upon receipt of her boxes of things, Parti may just let bygones be bygones. For isn’t it better to let dead dogs lie than to stir the hornet’s nest?

In any event, no matter what, she had taken care of your home and family for about 9 years, and that should count for something. As an employer, from such a wealthy background, one should have taken Proverbs 19:11 to heart: “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is to one’s virtue to overlook an offense.” 

Alas, the road less travelled is often one that is travelled light, free from personal grudges and bitterness, and every step of the journey is towards a heart of generosity that overlooks petty offenses. And it is well to bear in mind that just because one is wealthy and respected in society doesn’t mean that one can’t be wrong. 

Indeed, in a society sorted by wealth, power and fame, the temptation is always greater at the top to dehumanise those at the bottom, and to view them as a functional means to one’s dysfunctional ends. 

Anyway, my most important takeaway from this whole saga is that when you make a mountain out of a molehill, what is often exposed is your own foolishness, or worst, your embittered heart, and it becomes even more glaring each time you pile up on the heap