Ahmad Nizam Abbas

Early life and education

Ahmad Nizam Abbas is the son of Abbas Abu Amin, a People's Action Party MP, and Aishah Daud. Diagnosed with ADHD, he faced challenges at school. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in law and English at the University of Keele in 1991, qualified as an English barrister the following year, and became a Singapore lawyer in 1994. In 2013, he earned a Master of Laws in Islamic law and finance from Singapore Management University.

Career

Ahmad Nizam Abbas started out as a criminal defence lawyer before shifting his focus to family law. Among his notable early cases was representing Ghazali Abdul Manaf, a prisoner who died after being beaten by prison officers. He also took on the case of Tan Eng Hwa, a man sentenced to six months in jail for loitering and “appearing to be waiting for a chance to commit a crime.” In 2013, he defended two Chinese hotel chefs accused of accepting bribes from a seafood company. A decade later, in 2023, he represented former auxiliary policeman Mohamad Fazli Selamat, who was convicted of manslaughter for the death of his stepdaughter and received a sentence of 15 years and 11 months, along with 12 strokes of the cane.

Professionally, Abbas worked at Straits Law Practice, then became a senior partner at Emerald Law, and later founded his own firm, Crescent Law Chambers. In 2023, he was named deputy chairman of Simba Law Alliance, a coalition of law firms across Southeast Asia. He has served on various boards and committees, including Mediacorp, the Mendaki Club, the National Youth Forum, the Censorship Review Committee, and the Law Society’s Muslim law practice committee. He contributed op-eds to the Today newspaper about his experiences with the National Youth Forum. In 2006, there was speculation he would run for political office in Tampines, but he ultimately did not. In 2021, he co-founded Defense Fund SG, an initiative offering free legal help to victims of sexual harassment. For his public service, he received the Pingat Bakti Masyarakat in 2007. He also authored Singapore’s first textbook on Muslim family law.