Josephus Tan


Josephus Tan Joon Liang, better known as Josephus Tan, is a Singaporean criminal defence lawyer known for his pro bono work. In 2015, Tan received the Singapore Youth Award, the highest accolade for young Singaporeans who have made significant contributions to society, given by the National Youth Council.

Personal life

Born to parents who were blue-collar workers, Tan, the second of three sons, lived in a three-room HDB flat in Telok Blangah. Having grew up in a rough neighbourhood in Bukit Merah View, where there were fights and drug addicts on the streets, Tan became a gangster in his teens whose bad drinking habits often led to fights and sleeping on the streets. Besides skipping school and getting into fights, he did badly in his GCE Ordinary Level and even failed to complete his GCE Advanced Level. He later found a job as a computer salesman. Feeling aimless, he turned to alcohol and would fly into a rage whenever he drank. He also went into depression from what he perceived to be a goal-less existence. His parents, who were uneducated, only wanted him to grow up and get a job.
According to Tan, a life-changing moment came when he was 22. One night, he flew into an uncontrollable rage after a big quarrel with his girlfriend. In his drunken state, he became aggressive. He slapped and strangled his girlfriend, and even wanted to throw her off the balcony on his 23rd floor home. Seeing the danger his girlfriend was in, Tan's father wrestled him to the floor and slapped him twice, hard. Realising the hurt he had caused his loved ones, he turned over a new leaf. He quit alcohol and took up an external diploma in law from the University of London at a private institution. With the diploma, he gained entry and went on to pass the bar exams at the University of Southampton.
In 2013, Tan's father died of multiple cancers. Shortly after his father's death, Tan had a pair of tattoos on his arms to serve as a reminder of his late father and how the two slaps from him saved his life so that he can help save the lives of others now.

Career

In 2007, after graduating from the University of Southampton, Tan returned to Singapore to complete his pupillage under prominent criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan. He was called to the Singapore Bar in May 2009, and spends a third of his time on pro bono work. In 2012, he clocked 1,700 hours on cases he picked up from the Law Society's Pro Bono Services Office, making him the lawyer with the most pro bono criminal cases.
In July 2015, Tan received the Singapore Youth Award from the National Youth Council. By 2015, he had done over 5,000 hours of pro bono work. By 2017, the percentage of pro-bono work he has done increases from 30 per cent, when he first started, to 70 per cent.
Tan joined the People's Action Party and was close to being fielded as a candidate in the 2015 general election but had to pull out due to personal reasons. During the candidate selection interviews, he was asked if he would remove his tattoos and he said "No." As the tattoos are a reminder of his late father and what he had done, removing them was out of the question.
In a 2018 interview with Channel NewsAsia, Tan revealed that besides ground concerns about his public image, there were also concerns about his "mannerisms, how I'm very straight with my words, even my financial status or my past records, my admission to the fact that I was prone to criminality, maybe during National Service as well." Despite his anger and disappointment then, he is still hopeful of his political future. He is working to resolve his financial woes which started when he incurred huge debt in an attempt at filial piety just before his father's death. Another reason was his unstable income as he had been doing mostly pro bono work as well as spending time on grassroots work and giving motivational talks.
In 2017, Tan started his own law firm, Invictus Law Corporation, with personal loans from some close friends. Going forward, he aims to strike a balance between paid and pro bono work.

Teaching

Tan teaches Part B of the Singapore Bar Examination on Criminal Litigation.

Notable cases

Tan had taken on more than 500 cases and earned a reputation for taking on controversial cases, many a time pro bono.
In 2015, Tan represented Ng Yao Wei, a former Singapore Polytechnic student who had killed his brother at their family home in Choa Chu Kang. Ng was initially charged with murder, which carries the death penalty, but was later sentenced to seven years' jail on a lesser charge of culpable homicide as he was assessed to be suffering from major depressive disorder.
In 2016, Tan acted for Lee Wai Leong, the suspect in a case of animal abuse in Yishun. K. Shanmugam, the Law Minister, had called upon Tan to represent Lee for free. Lee, who had the mentality of a child, suffers from fits of epilepsy and seizures on an almost daily basis. He was accused of hurling a cat down from the 13th floor of a HDB block of flats. His parents have expressed disbelief and sought legal aid as they were unable to afford a lawyer.
In 2017, Tan defended the couple accused in the Annie Ee case. Ee had been subjected to physical and mental abuse for a period of eight months until she died from her injuries in her sleep. Tan, who acted for the accused, said that Ee's death was "unexpected and unintended", and a case of "discipline gone wrong". Tan Hui Zhen, one of the accused, was also suffering from depression due to her past miscarriages and had also been abused by her family previously. The High Court eventually found the couple guilty and sentenced Tan Hui Zhen to 16½ years' jail and her husband Pua Hak Chuan to 14 years' jail and 14 strokes of the cane for their "extremely cruel and inhumane" abuse.

Appointments

From 2006 to 2007, Tan took office as the President of the United Kingdom Singapore Law Students Society during his final year in the UK.
In December 2012, Tan was appointed by the High Court as a lead counsel in the Legal Assistance Scheme for Capital Offences. He is also the Law Society's co-chairman of the 2013 Law Awareness Project.
From 2013 to 2014, Tan served in the Council of the Law Society of Singapore.
In 2016, Tan was appointed to the select panel for admissions to the Singapore University of Social Sciences School of Law.
In 2017, Tan was appointed by Law Minister K. Shanmugam as a member to the National Council Against Drug Abuse.
In January 2018, Tan was appointed by Halimah Yacob, the President of Singapore, to the Youth Court as a Panel Advisor. In addition, he was also appointed by the Law Society as Chairman for its Law Awareness Committee.

Awards and honours

Tan was conferred the Pro Bono Ambassador of the Year award by the Law Society in 2013.
In 2013, Tan was also awarded the Junior Chamber International's Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World Merit Award.
In July 2015, Tan received the Singapore Youth Award given out by the National Youth Council. He was a past recipient of the CLAS Scheme Gold Award as well.

Charitable work

In 2012, Tan clocked 1,700 hours on cases he picked up from the Law Society's Pro Bono Services Office, making him the lawyer with the most pro bono criminal cases.
Starting from May 2014, he spends a lot of his time giving motivational talks to schools, associations and business organisations.
In July 2015, Tan gave free legal talks at Choa Chu Kang Community Club to educate the public about Singapore's penal laws, criminal procedures, sentencing principles and criminal court structures.

In the media

Tan's first appearance in the media was in July 2012, when he was featured on Mediacorp Channel 5's On The Edge to talk about prevailing youth crimes.
In February 2014, Tan was featured in the Mediacorp Channel 8 current affairs programme Tuesday Report Voices of the Heart. He was also featured in the #LifeReframed campaign, consisting of video interviews with 12 respected luminaries of their life lessons, which was screened at the Singapore International Film Festival.
In January 2015, Tan was invited by Channel 8 to talk about the legal profession in general, pro bono, and what should be the fundamental motivation for students aspiring to be lawyers on their daily evening show Shi Cheng You Yue.
In March 2015, Tan's life story was adapted into the Channel U drama, Second Chance. Desmond Tan who portrayed Josephus Tan, was lauded by TV viewers for his role as the delinquent turned lawyer who made good under tough circumstances. In April 2015, Tan was invited by MediaCorp Channel 5 onto "The 5 Show" to talk about cyberbullying vis-à-vis Singaporean youths.
In July 2015, Tan was invited by Nuyou Singapore to be featured as one of the inspirational individuals for the annual Nuyou TIME photo shoot.
In January 2016, Tan shared about the origin of his passion on Channel 8 Chinese documentary My Parents.
In December 2016, Tan was featured in the Channel NewsAsia documentary series A Fighting Chance about cyber crime situation in Singapore. Also, Tan was invited as a guest judge on a reality TV cooking show, Eat List Star.
In August 2017, Tan was featured in the Channel 8 cooking show, "Hey Chef 2", where he got to learn the ropes from Vincent Aw on how to cook the classic Spanish dish.
Tan also appeared on a TV interview on Channel News Asia's Prime Time Asia to give his professional take on the "Appropriate Adults" scheme for juvenile accused persons.
In September 2017, Tan shared his life story on Class 95FM's Mon-SLAY on Cartunes hosted by DJ Jean Danker, on how he turned his life around from a delinquent and alcoholic to hipster lawyer who now spends a third of his time doing pro bono work.
In January 2018, Tan was featured in the Channel 8 docudrama series The Convict that based its stories on past court cases. They are done via re-enactment, and with narrative technique, are intended to be entertaining but at the same time informative and show the investigation and final verdict of the court.
In March 2018, Tan appeared on Channel 8 doing Chinese calligraphy for the Thye Hwa Kwan Charity Show 2018 alongside 17 other MediaCorp artistes, politicians, social media personalities, doctors and celebrity chefs.