SINGAPORE: Comparisons are being made between senior lawyers Lee Suet Fern and Kwa Kim Li after Ms Kwa was ordered to pay $13,000 in penalties for misconduct relating to the way she handled the late founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew’s wills.
Ms Kwa is the niece of the late Mrs Kwa Geok Choo, wife of Mr Lee (LKY).
On May 5, a disciplinary tribunal found her guilty of misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor after it determined that she made the false and misleading representation that the late Mr Lee never instructed her to change his seventh will.
She was also found guilty of misleading the late Mr Lee’s children, Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee Wei Ling, by omitting to disclose her communications with their father between November 2013 and December 13, 2013, when they expressly asked her for information on what changes he wanted to make to his will.
On top of this, Ms Kwa was found to have breached confidentiality by sharing documents with the late Mr Lee’s eldest son and current Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, without the consent of his siblings, Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee Wei Ling, the executors and trustees of their father’s will.
As the disciplinary tribunal found the harm committed by Ms Kwa’s misconduct to be “low” and her culpability “low to medium,” it ordered her to pay penalties “sufficient and appropriate to the misconduct committed”.
The tribunal also ordered Ms Kwa to pay $12,000 in costs and $9,182.29 in disbursements to Mr Lee Hsien Yang.
The case has garnered widespread interest online, given the prominence of the Lee family as well as the fact that another Lee family member was charged with misconduct recently.
Mr Lee Hsien Yang’s wife, Ms Lee Suet Fern, faced disciplinary proceedings in 2020 over her involvement in the preparation and execution of her father-in-law’s last will.
The Law Society of Singapore, which brought the action against Ms Lee, alleged that she had breached the rules of professional conduct for lawyers by preparing her father-in-law’s will without adequately advising him and ensuring that he understood the implications of the terms of the will.
In particular, the Law Society alleged that Ms Lee had failed to properly advise the late Mr Lee on the implications of a clause in the will that stated that the final decision on the distribution of his estate should be made by his daughter and not by Mr Lee Hsien Yang.
The tribunal found Ms Lee guilty of grossly improper conduct.
But Ms Lee was acquitted of gross improper conduct by a Court of Three Judges.
The Court of Three Judges, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Judge of Appeal Judith Prakash and Judge Woo Bih Li, said that Ms Lee was acquitted of gross improper conduct, since no solicitor-client relationship could be established between her and the late Mr Lee.
However, the Court of Three Judges, the highest disciplinary body dealing with lawyers’ misconduct, suspended Ms Lee from legal practice for 15 months.
The court found her guilty of “misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor” over her handling of the will.
She had “blindly followed the directions of her husband, a significant beneficiary under the very will whose execution she helped to rush through”, it said in a written judgment.
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon described both Ms Lee and Mr Lee Hsien Yang as “deceitful”.
Mr Lee Hsien Yang, on the other hand, claimed in 2019 that Ms Kwa was lying to the public when she said she did not draft the final will.
Bloomberg reported that Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Ms Lee are currently in an undisclosed location in Europe. The Government has said that the pair “absconded” when asked to turn up for a police interview over lying about the late Mr Lee’s will.
Lee Hsien Yang refers to the ephemeral nature of political power in one-word post on Facebook