TR EMERITUS

Singapore has just scored another “Victory” in the war on drugs. Early today, we executed Mr. Tangaraju, a Singaporean who was sentenced to death in 2018. Much is being said on both sides of the debate and so I shall refrain from trying to add anything that the more intelligent and passionate have already said. I will however, make the point that it was rather ironic that we chose to execute a man so soon after the sentencing of Karl Liew for lying in court during the Parti Liyani case.

Could we have been wrong? – Taken from the Linkedin Page of Mr. M. Ravi.

If you leave the argument on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent for drug use to one side, the biggest argument that proponents have for the death penalty is that, its very clear. The Singapore government makes it a point to let everyone in and coming to Singapore know that the penalty for having drugs on your possession is death. You can argue “extenuating circumstances” till the cows come home but if the fact of the matter is that you were found to have drugs of any sort on your possession, the only thing that will save you is the rope breaking three times. Anyone who has a brain cell or two knows the risk of carrying drugs within Singapore and I guess you could say that if you get caught with drugs, then you deserve what you get.

However, there is one major flaw with that argument. It’s based on the assumption that the system is infallible and always right. If you work on the principle that the “State” catches the right guy all the time and then proves its beyond a shadow of doubt all the time, then I suppose that there should never be a problem. If anything, the people who believe in the death penalty will inevitably tell you that the guys who get caught are either caught red handed or confess. So, what’s the problem?

Well, as was shown in the Parti Liyani case, the “State” does make mistakes. The things that nobody imagined actually happened. The facts were clear in this case. The police investigation was sloppy. Evidence against Ms. Liyani was flimsy and a supposedly credible witness lied both to the investigating officer and under oath in trial. Then, there’s the fact that Ms. Liyani belongs to what you call, the less educated or at least the group that gets frightened easily by authority figures like policemen and so you got the inconsistencies in her statement to the police that our unconflicted law and home affairs minister was so quick to point to. Despite the obviously sloppy investigation and Mr. Karl Liew being exposed on the stand in the first trial, Ms. Liyani was sentenced to jail and lost four (4) years of her life.

Now, you could argue that Ms. Liyani was a “freak,” and that the Singapore Police Force (SPF) is right most of the time. However, the fact remains, the police are clearly capable of making mistakes and “credible” people are capable of lying on stand and its very clear that “innocent” people do get punished for crimes they did not commit because powerful forces were against them.

Then let’s not forget that Ms. Liyani’s case is a “freak” not because it was an oddity that the SPF made a mistake in its investigation or that a “credible” person lied on the stand. Her case is a “freak” because she had a lawyer who was willing to fight for her for no material reward and more importantly, she had a judge who could cut through the chase and made rulings based on solid facts presented in court (Namely realizing that Mr. Karl Liew’s testimony in court was not credible despite the fact that he is the son of a powerful corporate figure.)

Let’s remember that policemen and judges are humans and prone to human errors like throwing the book at “convenient targets,” like Ms. Liyani and most of the guys on death row. This isn’t unique to Singapore. In the US, you had the case of the Central Park Five, where five black and Latino teenagers were convicted of raping a white woman in 1989. The case stirred emotions, so much so that a then real estate tycoon decided to take an ad out in the papers calling for their execution. The police got confessions. They were convicted at trial in 1990 and nearly a decade later, the actual criminal was discovered in 2001.

Human errors exist and innocent people do get punished. In a world where the legal system is increasingly expensive, you will find that “convenient” targets will even go as far as to admitting to crimes they didn’t commit because they can’t afford to fight the system that they believe is against them. We have to accept that mistakes do get made and when people are wrongly convicted, they should be compensated (which would admittedly never quite compensate for years of their life lost). However, you have to ask yourself – how do you make restitution to someone that you have killed?

So, if you want the death penalty, you also need to look at making sure that the system is never wrong. You need to fix the system in such a way that human error and human weaknesses will never send the wrong people to the gallows. It is, as they say, pretty hard to say sorry to a corpse if mistakes are made.

Tang Li

*Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.

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