Ahmad Nizam : Straits Law Practice

Ahmad has been in practice since January 1994 and if you were to ask him what is it about the law that keeps him going, his answer is simply one word - people. It is his affinity with people that has seen him handling mainly matters of the heart and soul - family and criminal law.

He has acted for clients in cross-national marriages worldwide and as lead counsel in several criminal cases involving death penalty. Ahmad served on the Council of the Law Society from 1996 to 2000. Currently, he is the Chairman of the Muslim Law Practice Committee of the Law Society. On December 2009, he was appointed by the President to sit on the Panel of Advisers of the Juvenile Court of Singapore. In May 2010, he was appointed as an Associate Mediator of the Singapore Mediation Centre and has mediated at the Family Court.

Ahmad is active in the community and social work and is involved in diverse organizations such as Central Singapore CDC, Feedback Unit, National Youth Council, TRANS Centre, Mendaki Club and Singapore International Foundation just to name a few. He received the PBM (Pingat Bakti Masyarakat) from the President during the 2007 National Day awards.

A keen observer of the media industry, he sits on the Programme Advisory Committees (English and Malay) at the Media Development Authority and was a member of the Censorship Review Committee 2003. His versatility is also manifested in him being a Board member of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore between 2002 and 2005 , a Council member of the statutory board MUIS (The Islamic Religious Authority of Singapore) as well as serving on the Supervisory Panel of REACH.

Those who know him will testify that outside the courtroom, he is a jovial person who loves a good banter on even the most trivial topic. But in the courtroom, and especially when acting for the underdog, he is transformed into a passionate and tenacious adversary. At home however, he is at the mercy of his 3 children who insist that he further transform himself into whichever TV character they want him to be.

Ahmad Nizam can be contacted at 6514 1237


•	Criminal Litigation
•	Matrimonial & Family Disputes
•	Estate Planning

Most Significant Legal Cases to Date

This case involved a marriage between a Singaporean woman and Jordanian man. I will never forget this Singaporean nurse who married a Jordanian man whom she met while working in the Middle East. This lady had been battered close to death several times and even threatened at gun point. Unable to endure the suffering any longer and fearing for the life of her unborn 6th child, and unable to find any lawyer there who would take up her case against her influential husband, she escaped from her home imprisonment with the help of some overseas students.

Imagine her horror and disappointment when she applied for a divorce here and was told that because she had married under Jordanian laws where a woman cannot be divorced without the consent of the husband, the Court here could not grant her a Divorce.

What was foremost in my mind at the time I took up her case was simply this - which mother would leave behind 5 children in a distant land unless she truly had no other choice?

Besides embarking into a research journey on comparative laws, I had to trace the overseas students who had helped her escape. Only they could provide the evidence needed to prove the depravity and degradation she had endured. With much perseverance and some good fortune, we finally managed to secure key witnesses who by then had gone back to Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.

I will never forget the look on this lady's face when the Court finally decreed her divorce. It was a relief heavily tinged with anguish - of being unchained from a living hell, yet consumed by worry about her 5 other children she had left behind. But in her 6th child, a girl, reside the hope that one day, she will be reunited with all of them again.