On Wednesday afternoon, you might have noticed this story from The Straits Times:

Here's the TL;DR from it: Kong Hee, Serina Wee, Chew Eng Han, Tan Ye Peng, John Lam and Sharon Tan have on Wednesday afternoon filed a notice of appeal against the outcome of their case (them being convicted of criminal breach of trust and falsification of accounts) as well as their sentencing (jail time, ranging from 21 months to 8 years in length).

There was also this paragraph at the end that looked sort of like it was tossed in as an afterthought:

"The State Courts will serve court record of proceedings to all parties on Jan 4, after which they have 14 days to file a petition of appeal, said Chew."

To which a reader might have gone, "Huh? Haven't they just submitted their appeals against their conviction and sentencing today? Why is there another petition of appeal?"

Yeah, we were confused too, at first. So let's break it down for you:

On Wednesday, the six filed a notice of appeal.

Now, what this means is they're saying, "Okay, FYI Judge See Kee Oon, we think you were wrong in finding us guilty of crimes — not only that, you're also wrong in choosing to jail us for them."

Now that they have done this, Judicial Commissioner See, who presided over their case, found them guilty of their crimes and handed down their sentences, will have to produce his written judgement (he'll have to write out every detail that explains why he finds them guilty of the crimes they were charged with) for them to have a look at.

The State Courts, where their case was heard, will also have to produce what is called a court record of proceedings, which is basically a transcription of what was said and done in court throughout the period of the trial.

After this is given to them, which according to ST will be happening on January 4, the six of them will have two weeks to file a petition of appeal.

This "petitition of appeal" is the actual appeal itself, where they will raise, to the court above the initial one where their case was heard (in this case, the High Court), their reasons why they think they were wrongly judged.

So in doing this, they're saying, "Okay, guys at the High Court. We looked carefully at what Judge See wrote, as well as everything we said and which was said in court throughout our trial, and we still think Judge See is wrong, and we are innocent. So please agree with us, overturn See's verdict and let us off from our jail time."

Now, what happens to their jail term, which they are supposed to start serving on January 11?

It'll be postponed, especially if they do decide to go ahead with appealing the verdict and sentences they received. Which means, no — Wee and her friends won't be starting their new cell-based groups anytime soon.

(We didn't pull this out of thin air, by the way. What you see above was taken from here.)

Top photo from City News.

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