Iris Koh was ordered by a Supreme Court registrar to pay the S$23,000 or so in professional legal fees that she owes her former lawyers.
Koh, the founder of the controversial anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide, applied to set aside a statutory demand from her ex-lawyers from Fervent Chambers LLC. However, her application was dismissed by Supreme Court assistant registrar Gan Kam Yuin.
The lawyers issued the statutory demand on March 21 due to Koh’s failure to pay several invoices. The outstanding balance amounted to about S$30,000, of which Ms Gan awarded S$23,373.80.
42-year-old Koh faces two criminal charges of obstructing a police officer and defrauding the Ministry of Health over fake Covid-19 vaccination records. Koh was first hauled to court and charged in early January, which was when she hired defence counsel Clarence Lun and his team from Fervent Chambers for her criminal case.
Ms Gan noted that for the current proceedings over the unpaid legal fees, Mr Lun’s work could be broadly divided into three parts.
This included a criminal motion for Koh to be released on bail right before the Chinese New Year festivities. A High Court judge dismissed it before she was granted bail a few days later. Another area of work was a potential judicial review application over Covid-19 advisories issued by the Ministry of Manpower.
The lawyers claimed a total of S$24,125, while Koh said that they were entitled to only S$5,000.
Last month, a district court granted an application by Iris Koh to leave the country for Malaysia to seek alternative medical treatment for her thyroid cancer.
Koh, the founder of the anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide, was charged in January with conspiring to defraud the Ministry of Health (MOH) over fake-Covid-19 vaccination records. She has been out on a S$20,000 bail since Feb 4. District Judge Ng Peng Hong imposed an additional bail sum of S$30,000 for Koh to travel to the city of Malacca and get a second opinion from a doctor there.
Koh returned to Singapore last week and is due back in court on July 27. /TISG