Thursday, November 25, 2010

About That Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

Britain's Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne must be a very powerful man. All he had to do was "express dismay" after author Alan Shadrake was sentenced by a Singapore court on 16 November to 6 weeks in prison and fined S$20,000 for expressing his personal views on the legal system. “I look forward to constructive discussions when I visit Singapore next month, which I hope will serve to strengthen further the level of engagement and cooperation between our countries,” was his carefully phrased challenge to his diplomatic counterpart to recognise the right to freedom of expression as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Buried somewhere in the diplomatic jargon must be a coded message that caused the foreign affairs ministry and/or judicial officials to soil their underwear. In an unprecedented move, the Attorney General’s Office made an extraordinary application for the court on 23 Nov, to remind Mr Alan Shadrake of his right to seek leave of court if he wants to "exit the jurisdiction". According to Shadrake’s lawyer M Ravi, normally it is the prerogative of defence counsel to explore this escape route for a defendant not domicile in Singapore, and the AG to gleefully and vehemently contest it. Most don't even bother, given the slim chance of success in the kind of judicial system documented in Shadrake's book. Just ask Swiss national Oliver Fricker.

The turn around couldn't be more dramatic. In passing sentence, Justice Loh had pointed out that the law was not concerned with the sensitivities of the judge ”but whether there was risk in public confidence of the independence of the courts being undermined". He even castigated Shadrake’s apology as “nothing more that a tactical ploy in court to obtain a reduced sentence while mounting a different stance elsewhere.” And there was the veiled threat of being investigated by the police for criminal defamation; for which his passport is being held by the police.

Shadrake wrote in his book that the German government applied maximum pressure on Singapore to save Julia Bohl from the gallows, through the clever ploy of issuing a revised laboratory report that said only 281 of the 687 grams of cannabis found in her possession were pure stuff. The 15 grams of heroin that Amara Tochi from Nigeria was hanged for did not benefit from similar laboratory analysis. If Britain is exerting pressure through Browne, public confidence of the independence of the courts will no doubt be undermined. And additional fresh material will be provided for Shadrake's new book.

15 comments:

  1. This only fuels the impression that justice is at the beck and call of those with muscle.

    I am surprised at this statement from the AG's office. It seems to contradict the judge and prosecutor who took Shadrake thru the cleaners.

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  2. hahaha...so malu

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  3. Goes to show; bullies are all cowards!

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  4. hahaha.... our judicial system is now

    a rag doll...

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  5. Anonymous said...
    Goes to show; bullies are all cowards!
    November 25, 2010 2:15 PM

    ...and the biggest coward is ..chow Ah Fart!!!

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  6. Ironic ... doesn't this action by the govt and/or judiciary simply adds prove to Shadrake's book that different groups of people receive different treatments by S'pore's courts and authorities?!?

    PAP shooting its own foot??

    Another possibility is that PAP is also hoping that Shadrake jump bail and don't return to S'pore. If he does that, then he will have no case to go to the International Court of Justice liao. PAP will not need to divulge all their embarrassing secrets in open international court.

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  7. Can there be any doubts after the then AG, now CJ Chan, tied the law into knots to render GCT and company NOT in violation of election law when they were found in a polling centre on election day during a GE?

    The utter idiocy of a crumbling tin pot dynasty is so desperately funny if not for the utter cruelty it meant form decent citizens of Singapore.

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  8. Singapore is going downhill...

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  9. Let's wait and see what is the outcome of his application for leave of court, it is noted that AG did say that they will not contest it.

    For full transcript, see point 7 of:
    http://www.agc.gov.sg/docs/Media_Background_Brief_(22_Nov_2010).pdf

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  10. Sorry for error. Re-posting
    Let's wait and see what is the outcome of his application for leave of court, it is noted that AG did "not" say that they will not contest it.

    For full transcript, see point 7 of:
    http://www.agc.gov.sg/docs/Media_Background_Brief_(22_Nov_2010).pdf

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  11. Time for Alan to bargain that they drop the criminal defamation case as well.

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  12. AG's chamber has just saved me some money.
    No need to buy the book liao. It's contents
    are being acted out in true life and in
    Technicolor too!

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  13. Do not cry shame yet till all are settled.

    But, shall we say that disgrace may not cause any shame to some, especially those with no conscience.

    patriot

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  14. Shame? What shame??

    Even if they are charged in the ICJ, found guilty, given 24 of the best strokes of the rotten, they will turn around and dismiss everything as a conspiracy of the western powers to do them in!!!

    Shame - YES-SIR-REE!

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  15. Sorry, wrong word, should be rottan not rotten,
    but still somewhat applicable.

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