Criminal reference on City Harvest verdict to be heard on Aug 1

SINGAPORE — The six former City Harvest Church (CHC) leaders will appear before the highest court of the land on Aug 1, for the hearing on the criminal reference prosecutors filed to clarify the law under which the church leaders were convicted.

The case will be heard in the Court of Appeal before a panel of five judges - Judges of Appeal Andrew Phang and Judith Prakash, and Justices Belinda Ang, Quentin Loh and Chua Lee Ming - a Supreme Court spokesperson said in response to queries from TODAY.

A criminal reference is a type of legal hearing before the apex court, which is limited to criminal cases in which a question of law of public interest arises in a High Court decision on an appeal. Such cases are held in open court and the decision of the Court of Appeal on the matter is final.

On April 7, a High Court decision had significantly cut the leaders’ jail terms for criminal breach of trust. Their sentences now range from seven months to three years and six months’ jail.

The High Court had ruled, in a split decision, that the leaders should have been charged with plain criminal breach of trust under Section 406 of the Penal Code, which carries a lower maximum punishment. They were originally convicted for criminal breach of trust as agents under Section 409 of the Penal Code.

Following that, prosecutors filed a criminal reference to find out whether a director or member of an organisation's governing body who has been entrusted with property should not be considered as “an agent” under Section 409 of the Penal Code.

“If the Court of Appeal answers the questions referred in accordance with the Prosecution’s submissions, the Prosecution intends to request that the Court of Appeal ... reinstate the appellants’ original convictions under section 409 of the Penal Code and make necessary and consequential orders in relation to the sentences given,” the Attorney-General’s Chambers said in a press release issued last month.

CHC former fund manager Chew Eng Han was granted a stay of his sentence until the apex court has made a ruling on the criminal reference. The other five leaders have been serving their sentences since Apr 21.  

The six were first convicted of misappropriating church funds in 2015 after a long-running trial which started in 2013. The lower court had found then that the Crossover project was financed with S$24 million from the church building fund through sham bonds, while another S$26 million was used to cover up the move. The project had tried to use Kong’s wife Ho Yeow Sun’s secular pop music to evangelise.