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THE leadership of an elite country club has been slammed by Singapore's highest court for its handling of a disciplinary case against a member whose marital status it queried.
The Court of Appeal said the governing body of the Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) denied Madam Kay Swee Pin a proper hearing, acted irrationally and was prejudiced against her from the start.
The club's general committee (GC), then led by lawyer Giam Chin Toon, breached the rules of natural justice when it suspended her club membership, said Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong when he released the court's grounds of decision on Thursday.
The 44-page document, laying out why the Court of Appeal decided that her suspension should be made void, gave a peek into country-club politics, complete with poison e-mail and hurtful gossip.
Madam Kay, a club member since 1992, had her marital status questioned in August 2005, amid the heat of elections to posts in the club. Whispers went around that Mr Ng Kong Yeam was not really her husband.
One example cited in the judgment of how high-handed and biased the GC was in its dealings with her noted that the committee had concluded that if club gossip was right, then she had misled the SICC in order to secure for Mr Ng free access to club facilities.
The GC ordered its disciplinary committee (DC) to investigate the matter - without even first seeking an explanation from her.
Although the job was handed over to the DC, the GC went ahead to order searches with the Registry of Marriages to ascertain her marital status; it played investigator, which it should not have done, and collected evidence, which it did not forward to her.
When the DC cleared her, the GC reversed the decision and kept the DC on the case.
Madam Kay's defence was that she married Mr Ng in a customary ceremony in 1982. She said she was not asked to produce a marriage certificate when she sought to join the club, but that she could have got one if she had been asked for it.
She added that she had no cause to save a few dollars by signing Mr Ng in as her husband, when she was well able to afford the $190,000 membership fee.
But the GC, choosing to ignore her explanations, declared her customary marriage invalid. It further suggested that she might have committed bigamy as her divorce from her first husband was not yet final, and then redirected the DC to base its recommendations on this premise.
CJ Chan noted that the GC was quick to condemn her without first considering the DC's findings or giving her a hearing.
When the DC returned with a recommendation that she return $12,500 in green fees chalked up by Mr Ng, it reiterated that she had no intention to cheat the club. But the GC also ignored this and went one further, suspending Madam Kay for a year without first telling her.
Madam Kay, represented by lawyer S.H. Almenoar, took her case to the High Court, which decided in March last year it could not intervene in the affairs of a social club if natural justice was done.
She turned to the Court of Appeal, which ruled in January that social clubs - and more so the SICC with its transferable memberships - had to follow the rules of natural justice.
The judgment also singled out lawyer John Lee, 59, whose wife's position as Lady Golf Captain was being challenged by Madam Kay, as the prime mover of the saga.
The final clanger from CJ Chan: The charge against Madam Kay was not even legal. She was not a club member yet when she signed in her husband. She was doing it at the same time as her application to join the club.
benjamin@sph.com.sg
vijayan@sph.com.sg
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