Flexing Muscles

When Hri Kumar Nair (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC) and Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied GRC) suggested in Parliament that statements given by accused persons in custody should be video-recorded, a practice already in place in countries like Australia, the UK, South Korea and Taiwan, to ensure that the words in the statement "fell from the accused’s own lips and were not force fed", Senior Minister of State for Law Indranee Rajah's terse response was "there are currently no plans to introduce video recording for the taking of statement".

When NCMP Yee Jenn Jong questioned the high handed antics of the Internal Affairs Office (IAO) of the Singapore Police Force (SPF) in seizing the handphone, laptop and iMac of independent film-maker Lynn Lee without providing relevant provisions under which they were authorised, Senior Minister of State for Law Indranee Rajah was equally negative and succinct, "“So the intention is not to not give an answer".

The "rajah" in her name may connote royalty, but her laconic replies from on high doesn't exactly inspire confidence of transparency in the administration of law in Singapore.

Or lend credence to the Foreign Affairs Ministry's lament of "pressure" tactics from the United States over investigations into Shane Todd's "suicide". US Senators Max Baucus' and Jon Tester have introduced an amendment to block American funding to Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics (IME) until the US Attorney General certifies that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has full access to all evidence and records relevant to the death of  Shane Todd. Until the protestations of his aggrieved parents surfaced, the main stream media had been reporting that 31-year-old Shane was found hanged in his Singapore apartment "in what appeared to be suicide".

What also surfaced in this clash of giants is that IME, which is part of the national Agency for Science, Technology And Research (A*STAR) actually received a stipend (US$500,000 in 2010) from the US Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (Darpa) for collaborative projects. Given the disparity in salaries between the heads of state of the two countries involved, it was akin to the "rich" taking a handout from the "poor". In the parsimony of parlance favoured by Senior Minister of State for Law Indranee Rajah, the brief answer for the state of affairs has to be, "Greed".