Case Explained: Retired judge Choo Han Teck on how law was never his first love and what he’s learnt from 30 years on the bench – Legal Perspective

ON WHAT MAKES A GOOD JUDGE

Asked if he had any advice for judges still on the bench, Mr Choo batted the question away, saying he did not like to give advice. 

However, he offered his thoughts on what makes a good judge: honesty and compassion.

“If you are honest and compassionate, you will end up being a good listener. You (will) want to know the case properly … you will want to hear all sides without bringing your own personal views and likes into the equation,” he said.

He said litigants might forgive a judge if they think he is stupid, but they would never forgive a judge whom they perceive as biased.

The most difficult thing about being a judge, continued Mr Choo, was to be as certain as he could that the right decision was being made.

“Unfortunately, very often, we can never be sure that you are actually making the right decision,” he said. 

He pointed to the example of making an order for the care and custody of a child to be given to one parent over the other.

“No judge would be able to know the true state of the family relations,” he said. “Of course, we do our best looking at the affidavits and looking at the evidence that is presented to us, and we should be able to come to what we think is a sound judgment, but we can never be sure.”

His guiding principle for himself as a judge was to put himself in the shoes of everyone involved in the case – the complainant or the victim, and the accuser and the accused.

Asked about the controversial late lawyer M Ravi, Mr Choo said he quite liked the human rights lawyer, who never gave him any trouble.

“He had a pretty nice sense of humour. He gave me a book that he had written called Hung At Dawn,” he recalled. 

“One day I told him: ‘Ravi, you know, your title should have been Hanged At Dawn. We are brought up to use ‘hanged’ for humans and ‘hung’ for pictures. And he said: ‘Yeah, but in Singapore we hang people like we hang pictures’.”

“Quite a witty person. I never got to see the terrible side of him, which I can imagine he has if he was not on his medication. I never saw that side of him personally.”

Still thinking about M Ravi, Mr Choo then quipped: “That’s the thing I learned about judging, and that is not to judge.”