Two chairs will solve the problem. Or will it?

In a commentary published in the Straits Times, 29 September 2017 (link), former Attorney-General (AG) Walter Woon argued for splitting the position of the AG into two. His reasoning was that as presently constituted, the position has two very distinct functions: that of being the government’s legal adviser and separately, the one who decides on  prosecutions.

Fake alarms from fake news

As the contestation over the “alternate facts” so beloved by the Trump administration crescendoes — as it surely will over the coming months — the Singapore government will see more opportunities to import the same arguments into Singapore as a means of heightening censorship. The twist will be that our government will claim that their “facts” are facts, whilst their detractors’ views and statements are “fake news” or falsehoods, conveniently swapping the positions of government and opposition in the American debate.

Auxiliary thoughts about auxiliary police

A Certis Cisco auxiliary policeman and two neighbourhood vigilantes shooing away foreign workers

The news this week is that Certis Cisco — a fully-owned subsidiary of sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings — is hiring Taiwanese for its auxiliary police force. Here are four thoughts that I had, leading on from this key news point. They are: (1) What are the implications of hiring Taiwanese? (2) Why must they be graduates? (3) What are the powers of auxiliary police? (4) Another example of rentier economy? 

Benjamin Lim suicide: of video and subjudice

In his statement to Parliament on the 26 January 2016 death by apparent suicide of Benjamin Lim, law minister K Shanmugam referred extensively to video evidence when he presented what he called the facts. He said that closed-circuit television (CCTV) had captured the teenager making a detour to another block in the neighbourhood when coming home from school, and following a girl into a lift. Then he mentioned that CCTV within the lift provided evidence “showing what happened” without elaborating what exactly it showed.

Benjamin Lim suicide: shadow puppetry begins

Whenever a politician goes on the attack, saying others have been trafficking in “falsehoods”, one has to be alert to the possibility that amidst the smoke and thunder, some more important questions are being avoided. This appears to be the case when the law minister K Shanmugam finally addressed the Benjamin Lim case.

The apparent suicide of 14-year-old Benjamin, hours after being hauled to a police station on 26 January 2016 and interrogated for three-and-a-half hours without lawyer or even parent present is, in itself, troubling enough. That it also shines a light on the lack of rights even if the accused were an adult is why this case is doubly significant.

Behind the brat looms an oppressor still

It’s a terrible pity that Amos Yee’s thoughtless, groundless and hurtful accusation against Vincent Law has taken centre-stage. Vincent had extended a magnanimous gesture of support when Amos needed a bailor. For the boy to make false accusations against him is completely inexcusable.

It’s a terrible pity because it distracts us from examining the political implications of the state laying charges against Amos in the first place. However, even though he has soiled whatever sympathy he deserved (from being a victim of the government’s panicked rush to slay him), we should still be able to put it aside and focus on what happened at the beginning. 

How to help ripped-off tourists

The past week saw a remarkable story of how people here rallied to redeem Singapore with no help at all from government agencies. After video surfaced of Vietnamese tourist Pham Van Thoai on his knees begging for a refund from a callous shop owner, over $14,000 was raised within a day on Indiegogo to help compensate him for his loss of $550. According to reports, news reached all the way back to Vietnam, earning much praise for Singaporeans.

Yet, I daresay that for every one Thoai, there must be a thousand more tourists and local shoppers scammed by get-rich-quick businessmen (and women). Ad hoc bottom-up indignation and fundraising, however laudable in one instance, cannot be a practical solution to a persistent cancer. We need a structural response, and in the nature of structural responses, the role of the state in implementing one cannot be avoided.

Legal Elmina

The judgement by the Court of Appeal, affirming the constitutional validity of Section 377A of the Penal Code, is a landmark… in the way that Elmina Castle in Ghana is a landmark. Section 377A is the law that criminalises sex between men and is the fount for a cascade of discriminatory policies against LGBT persons in Singapore. The judgement was released on 30 October 2014 and has since received very dim reviews from many observers, organisations and publications abroad, including the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Not at taxpayers’ expense

I had a sense of deja vu when Law Minister K Shanmugam said that allowing migrant workers to challenge deportation orders through the judicial process would mean that  “every foreigner is entitled to stay here at taxpayers’ expense, housed here at taxpayers’ expense” (source), while the cases wend their way through the courts.

The same “it costs too much” argument was regularly deployed by supporters of the death penalty in previous years. It goes along these lines: society should not be burdened with having to feed and clothe a prisoner on a life sentence; it’s more economical to hang him. However, the government itself did not, to my knowledge, use this argument. It came from various members of the public.

Riot in Little India: spark and fuel

There rarely is any definitive explanation of any riot. There won’t be one of the brief incident — it lasted barely an hour — at Little India last night, Sunday 8 December 2013. The reason why definitive explanations are elusive is because there is always an element of chance and irrational behaviour. Moreover, riots are complex events involving many actors with many contributory factors.