See Kee Oon (born 1966) is a Singaporean judge who is currently a Judge of the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

and was the Presiding Judge of the State Courts.

Education

See received a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

from the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in the c ...

(NUS) in 1991 and obtained a

Master of Laws A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...

(first class honours) from the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1994. He also holds a Master of Public Management from the NUS's

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) is an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS), named after the late former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. History The Lee Kuan Yew School of ...

Career

See joined the Singapore Legal Service in 1991 and was appointed as a Deputy Registrar and Magistrate in the

Subordinate Courts A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

(now State Courts). From 1995 to 1997, he served as a Justices' Law Clerk before becoming a District Judge in 1998. As a District Judge, he heard a variety of cases in the criminal, civil and family courts until 2007, when he became Head of the Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office. In November 2009, See was reappointed as a District Judge and subsequently made Senior District Judge, heading the Criminal Justice Division of the Subordinate Courts. On 1 October 2013, See became the Chief District Judge of the Subordinate Courts and a member of a committee to guide the development of the

Singapore University of Social Sciences Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borderin ...

School of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

. On 14 April 2014, he was appointed as a Judicial Commissioner and Presiding Judge of the State Courts. On 31 January 2017, he was promoted to Judge of the

. See has taken the unusual position that testifying witnesses are not required to be given an oath or otherwise instructed to tell the truth. Instead, he contends that the Oaths and Declarations Act "gives the judge the prerogative whether to caution a witness to speak the truth"or not," resulting in a greater likelihood of wrongful convictions. One case presided by See was the trial of Gaiyathiri Murugayan, who was charged with the

abuse and murder of Piang Ngaih Don On the morning of 26 July 2016, a Burmese maid Piang Ngaih Don (13 June 1992 – 26 July 2016) was found tortured, starved and beaten to death in a flat in Bishan, Singapore. Her killers were Prema S. Naraynasamy, an elderly woman, and her daug ...

, a Myanmar national who was her domestic maid. Gaiyathiri was found guilty of

culpable homicide Culpable homicide is a categorisation of certain offences in various jurisdictions within the Commonwealth of Nations which involves the illegal killing of a person either with or without an intention to kill depending upon how a particular j ...

not amounting to murder and voluntarily causing hurt to the maid, and sentenced to a total of 30 years' imprisonment. See described the case as one of the worst cases of culpable homicide Singapore has ever seen, and described that the degree of callousness and violence was so shocking that no suitable words could adequately describe the inhumane year-long mistreatment, assault and starvation, which the maid was subjected to. See was also the judge who heard the last-minute appeals by two Malaysian drug traffickers

Pannir Selvam Pranthaman Pannir Selvam a/l Pranthaman (born 31 July 1987) is a Malaysian drug trafficker who was convicted of trafficking 51.84g of heroin at Woodlands Checkpoint in September 2014. Pannir, who was not certified as a drug courier, was sentenced to death ...

and

Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam Nagaenthran a/l K. Dharmalingam (13 September 1988 – 27 April 2022) was a Malaysians, Malaysian drug trafficker who was convicted of trafficking 42.72 grams of heroin in April 2009 upon entering Singapore from Malaysia at Woodlands Checkpoint ...

in 2020 and 2021 respectively, as they sought to reopen their cases and delay their executions. Both Pannir and Nagaenthran lost their appeals and remained on death row; Nagaenthran was initially set to be executed on 10 November 2021 before it was delayed due to Nagaenthran tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Nagaenthran was hanged on 27 April 2022.

References

External links

State Courts Annual Report 2013: Renewing our Commitment to Justice State Courts Annual Report 2013: Renewing our Commitment to Justice
{{DEFAULTSORT:See, Kee Oon 1966 births Singaporean people of Hokkien descent Living people National University of Singapore alumni Alumni of Hughes Hall, Cambridge Singaporean people of Chinese descent Judges of the Supreme Court of Singapore