Justice, Law, and the Courts II

From : http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_321763.html :

Mr Shanmugam, who is also the Second Minister for Home Affairs, said that the Chief Justice’s remarks on the rule of law were timely.

‘But an aggressive small group of people think they can change those laws by going out there and protesting and the courts have repeatedly emphasised they will apply the law as it is. That is justice according to the law,’ he said.

‘Unfortunately, even publicly sometimes, this is forgotten. People forget that some of these protests are really aimed at breaking the law and changing the law and is that what we want?’

 

From “The Best I Could” by Subhas Anandan, quoted from http://mathialee.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/justice-law-and-the-courts/ :

‘’They say that sometimes justice and law are distant cousins. In the case of some countries, you’ll be lucky to say that justice and the law have the same parents. In Singapore’s case, it is sad to say that sometimes we feel that justice and law seem to be indifferent to each other. The law says something but when it is interpreted in the courts, it says something else. Most of the time, it is to the detriment of the accused person. This is sad. If it is not kept in check, one day we’ll come to a stage when justice and law will not only be indifferent to each other, it can be hostile. That will be a sad day for Singapore”

 “Many a time the prosecution has erred in exercising its prosecutory prerogative which is so rigid and strong that compassion is considered a weakness. Why they must take such a tough stand, I cannot understand. …. In this case, justice and law were not distant cousins. They were total strangers.”

 

 

From: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/399970/1/.html :

 

Law Minister K Shanmugam also emphasised on Saturday that if someone wants a particular law to be changed, he should do so by getting elected into Parliament.

 

 

 

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Singapore :

 

Opposition parties exist, but have never been able to get enough votes to gain control of Singapore’s government. Hence Singapore has been governed by one single party since 1959.

 

 

 

From: http://informationreadbyme.blogspot.com/2009/01/respect-must-be-earned.html :

 

do the people of Singapore really have no say at all in how things are run or managed? Why must we be elected into Parliament to effect a change? Then what is our MPs job since we need to be elected in to do it ourself? Isn’t our MPs there for that reason?

Is this statement saying that our MPs cannot effect a change in the law? And that to effect such a change, we personally must try to be elected into Parliament?

 

 

 

From: http://www.todayonline.com/articles/291620.asp :

 

If no satisfactory answers are forthcoming, you cannot blame the man in the street for thinking that there is one law for the rich and one for the poor,” Mr Anandan said.

 

From: Ghandi (Quoted from :  Gandhi’s Words http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/Gandhi.quotes.html#CIVIL )  :

 

Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies.

Civil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be cruel joke.

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless corrupt.

Civil disobedience means capacity for unlimited suffering without the intoxicating excitement of killing.

Disobedience to be civil has to be open and nonviolent.

Disobedience to be civil implies discipline, thought, care, attention.

Disobedience that is wholly civil should never provoke retaliation.

Non-cooperation and civil disobedience are different but branches of the same tree call Satyagraha (truth-force).

 

From The Penal Code (http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_getdata.pl?actno=2008-REVED-224&doctitle=PENAL%20CODE&date=latest&method=part&segid=1228207124-002776#1228207125-003966) :

377A. Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.

 

From : Lee Kuan Yew ( quoted from : http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSSIN33351020070423 ) :

“If in fact it is true, and I have asked doctors this, that you are genetically born a homosexual — because that’s the nature of the genetic random transmission of genes — you can’t help it. So why should we criminalize it?”

 

 

From:  PM Lee Hsien Long (quoted from : http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/pdf/20071023/pmlee-377a.pdf ) :

 

“we inherited Section 77A from the British ¡V imported from the English Victorian law, from the period of Queen Victoria in the 19th century, via the Indian Penal Code, via by the Straits Settlement Penal Code into Spore law”

 

“So the question is, what do we want to do about it now? Do we want to do anything about it now? If we retain it, we are not enforcing it proactively. Nobody has argued for it to be enforced very vigorously in this House. If we abolish it, we may be sending the wrong signal that our stance has changed and the rules have shifted. But because of the Penal Code amendments, Section 337A has become a symbolic issue, the point for both opponents and proponents to tussle around”

 

“for the majority of Singaporeans, the attitude is a pragmatic one – we live and let live”

 

 

“we’ve decided to keep the status quo on Section 377A. It’s better to accept the lega luntidiness and the ambiguity. It works, don’t disturb it”

 

 

 

From : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_declaration_on_sexual_orientation_and_gender_identity :

 

As of December, 2008, homosexuality is illegal in 77 countries, in seven of which it is punishable by death.[2] In its 1994 decision in Toonen v. Australia, The UN Human Rights Committee, which is responsible for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), declared that such laws are in violation of human rights law.[3]