SINGAPORE — In his two years representing the Bar as president of the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc), weighty issues such as how to ramp up pro bono work or deal with an impending oversupply of new lawyers cropped up. Yet it was an old protest over giving accused persons here earlier access to legal counsel that thrust outgoing LawSoc president Thio Shen Yi into the spotlight.

After all, it is rare that the LawSoc and Ministry of Law clash over legal issues in public, but Mr Thio’s comments about the handling of molestation allegations against teenage schoolboy Benjamin Lim earned him a rebuke from Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam in Parliament in March for implying that the 14-year-old killed himself because of police intimidation.

Reflecting on that incident — which he describes as “a badge of honour” — as he prepares to hand over the society’s reins to Mr Gregory Vijayendran in January, Mr Thio, 49, does not feel that the minister had it in for him, nor regrets renewing the call for accused persons, especially vulnerable members of the public, to get earlier access to lawyers.

“It is incongruous that we would say criminal defence work is an honourable and vital part of the justice system, yet concurrently, the restrictions on quick access to counsel send a message that criminal lawyers might sabotage the investigation process. We need a fairer equilibrium,” said the self-professed “big mouth”, who got a mix of brickbats and bouquets from fellow lawyers after the episode.

Benjamin, 14, was found dead at the foot of his HDB block on Jan 26, hours after he had returned home from being questioned by the police over molestation allegations. In the February issue of the society’s monthly newsletter, Mr Thio suggested that a less intimidating approach could have been taken in the case, even though he noted that there was no way to know for certain why Benjamin took his own life, or whether it could have been prevented.

Stressing that the police in Benjamin’s case were “playing by the rules”, Mr Thio said in an interview with TODAY on Wednesday: “My point was that the rules need to be changed to redress the imbalance. Accused persons should be given access to independent legal advice as early as possible ... If they don’t have the information, they imagine the worst, and could even admit to things they didn’t mean to.”

He described the current state of affairs as “unprogressive”, noting that in many other jurisdictions, accused persons can speak to a lawyer within 48 hours after being arrested. In Singapore, accused persons can consult legal counsel within a “reasonable” time, which may stretch up to two weeks, noted Mr Thio. “This is one metric that we are really far behind in.”

Asked if he felt he had made progress on the issue during his tenure, Mr Thio said: “(LawSoc’s) concern with immediate or early access to counsel pre-dates my presidency. My role was to amplify the arguments and rationale, to focus the discussion on this issue. We’ve kept it a live concern, but we’ve also tried to accommodate the views of the police.” Still, he hopes the LawSoc can facilitate immediate access to counsel by mustering an “emergency team” of three to four lawyers on standby on any given day.

In terms of pro bono work, Mr Thio feels the profession has “come a long way”, especially in persuading high-ranking partners of a “need to do something beyond themselves”. “But we are still not quite there,” he said, pointing to the “sandwich class” of litigants who neither qualify for legal aid nor are able to afford legal counsel. He suggested a co-funding option as a solution.

As he prepares to take a backseat from the LawSoc, the joint managing director of TSMP Law Corporation will sink his teeth into the issue of a surplus of law graduates, which has caused much gnashing of teeth as many find themselves without a training contract or are not retained by firms.

Mr Thio will be part of a panel tasked with addressing the oversupply — including through a review of the training contract regime — but he is convinced that “we should let market forces take their own course”.

Noting that the current glut resulted from a starved Bar years ago which drove up lawyers’ salaries, in turn drawing students into reading law, Mr Thio said: “The market will find an equilibrium when people realise there are insufficient jobs.” Ultimately, firms will hire based on what they need and can afford, he added.

Come January, Mr Thio said he would have more time to “look back into my own house”, referring to his firm. “Over the last two years, I still maintained a ‘full-on’ practice. I have a team of lawyers that kept me gainfully employed,” he quipped.

He is also relishing the prospect of hitting the tennis courts more often and picking up reading again. “My tennis standard has suffered catastrophically, and the pile of unread books in my library keeps growing,” he said.