TR EMERITUS

Singaporeans are too comfortable and sheeply that they don't think or probe, they just take everything at face values. They look at the nice infrastructure and all the right news on MSM, they think Singapore is advancing. Let me share with you what I see for the last three decades. 1. Master Plan (s) If you remember, they have master plan for 5, 10 and 20 years. But now, they don't even mention them anymore. Day in day out, they crying we are short of foreign workers and we need foreign talents. 2. Technology Hub This vision probably more than 3 decades but today Vietnam is now leading the Asean Hub, followed by Indonesia and Singapore? Supposedly we started so many decades, should not we be leading hub in Asia or at worst ASEAN? 3. Financial Hub The only thing I remembered was SGX broke down few times, a Pinoy CTO was responsible for it. And SGX was praised to be the leading exchange in the world??? And today, even homegrown enterprise would not even choose to list on SGX!!! Singapore is fortunate that China clamped down on Hong Kong has forced many financial groups and companies to move to Singapore, this is considered drop from sky!!! 4. Manpower Hub Most third world talents resulting in all kind of failures and poor quality. MRT problems, Bridge collapses, Scams, Rising Crimes, Ponding whenever, Poor quality housing et cetera. Quality and skilled actually dropped but of course they changed the KPIs and even ownself awarded ownself many awards. Thats the funny part. Remember we have higher and higher local unemployment, our grads became PHV and food delivery. And the man power KPI was further amended that 1 hour of part time work is now considered employed!!! 5. Swiss Standard Of Living We were promised this by Ah Goh, we only achieved Swiss Cost Of living isn't it? Now they don't even dare to boast about this anymore? 6. Housing If you look at the prices of new BTOs, they look scary, we are now advised to look for 2 bed room or smaller units, so called affordability and to tie yourself to a loan of 25 years!!! People often complain about the using of cheap material and quality issues with these new overpriced BTOs! 7. Medical Standard and Affordability We were told to pay more to be ensure we are well covered but in the end after all kind of subsidies and so many new schemes to deplete our CPF, we still paying a lot from our own pockets. The old people say you can die but never go to hospital, this is how pathetic the situation has become! 8. Retirement Now we are no longer told to retire, we are now told to work till your last breath and top up your CPF! We are also told not to count on CPF to retire but to resell your flat back to support your retirement. Don't you find this funny? 9. Pandemic and Rising Crimes With such a small land capacity, the space for 5.8M is now worst than Hong Kong and you could see how infectious were spreading so fast in Singapore, leading to more than 1 MILLION cases. Same as Hong Kong, since both countries are overly congested and populated. Next, we can see many rising and violent crimes, due to space and stress in highly competitive country where we are constantly told if you don't look after your lunch, someone will steal it. Now we are constantly reminded we can handle 10M and every year we see the same news repeated, we are told we short of foreigners every few months and not to mentioned the gate of massive immigration has always been wide open. 10. Goal 2020? Honestly, this was boasted so frequently, now very quiet. Now we can't even beat Myanmar nor Laos. 11. Are you better now or in the past? People need to ask themselves if we have progressed like they have always boasted, surely we are now happier since we are living a better life than the past? This will give you an answer to this leadership and their policies, isn't it? If they remove gate of massive immigration, honestly we are nothing, GDP wont grow, thats the only strategy they have. Please share your thoughts if you do not agree with me.   Dr Ahmad      Read More →

It is so bizarre. They want to hang Datchinamurthy Kataiah when he has a pending civil claim against the prison authority. The claim is for damages and declarations for illegal disclosure of correspondence between his lawyer and him to the Attorney-General. Datchinamurthy and 12 other death row inmates have filed a civil suit against the State which is fixed for hearing on 20 May. But the Prison Authority want him dead on Friday (29 April). Why the haste? Was the Attorney-General informed of the execution? If so, why didn't he file an application to halt the execution? Was it his intention to finish Datchinamurthy off so that he cannot be present at the hearing and his case will be dismissed? If Datchinamurthy had not filed his application two days ago, he would have been dead today. And what about the other 12 Applicants who are Datchinamurthy's co- Applicants? Did the AG intend that they too will be executed before 20 May so that the entire suit will be dismissed because the Applicants have all failed to show up - all killed by the State? IT IS SO BIZARRE! First world Singapore which boasts of its strict adherence to the Rule of Law with an Attorney- General behaving in this way! Whatever the intention of the Attorney-General, he owes the people of Singapore an explanation. What makes the Attorney-General look really bad is that he appealed after the High Court judge allowed the application of Datchinamurthy for a stay of execution yesterday morning. This decision really makes me wonder if the Attorney General had planned to hang all 13 death row inmates before the hearing of their civil suit. What is he afraid of if he has done no wrong? Luckily, his appeal was dismissed by the Courr of Appeal. Was this appeal frivolous? Should Datchinamurthy be entitled to legal costs for so much pain and stress he had to endure? Datchinamurthy is a very strong man. I wish him and his co Applicants success. May they be granted clemency after suffering so much pain.   Teo Soh Lung      Read More →

The hot news yesterday was the fact that the Court granted a stay of execution for Mr. Datchinamurthy Kataiah (“Datchi”), a Malaysian Tamil who was due to be hanged on Friday  (29 April 2022). What makes this case so newsworthy is the fact that Mr. Datchi was one of 13 inmates who had taken out a suite against the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) because it was found that the Prison Service had been copying letters between the prisoners and their then lawyer and forwarding them to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) in April 2020. The hearing against the AGC was set for 20 May 2022. However, Mr. Datchi was informed on 21 April 2022 that he was going to be hanged on 29 April 2022. Mr. Datchi was forced to go to court without legal representation to get a stay of execution and despite having no representation, he managed to get the stay. The AGC filled for an immediate appeal against setting aside this execution, which was subsequently rejected by the Court of Three Judges. The story can be found at: [LINK] As with all death penalty cases, this was a highly emotive affair. On one hand you have the activist against the death penalty. On the other, you have the crowd that sees “Western Liberalism” as the cause of all ills and every death sentence passed down is a victory for “Asian Values.” As was reported by the Independent Singapore reported, attitudes based on online comments seem to have hardened in favour of the death penalty. The report can be found at: [LINK] I’m going to leave the legalities and moralities of the death penalty to people who are wiser and far smarter than me. What I will focus on, is something that is more troubling – namely the way in which this case has been pursued because it shows us something very fundamental about the rule of law in Singapore, which is supposed to be one of the key selling points of Singapore. Let’s start with the facts that nobody disputes. Mr. Datchi was caught with 44.96g of heroin in April 2015. So, as per the penal code he has to be hanged. However, he has the right to go through various avenues of appeal, which are more often than not unsuccessful but because we claim to value the rule of law and we don’t want to make mistakes, we have to allow for various avenues of appeal until everything is exhausted. As this involves the court, the process can run into several years. Just as nobody disputes that Mr. Datchi was caught with the amount of heroin that mandates the death sentence, it is clear that sometime in April 2020, Mr. Datchi and several inmates made a complaint that their correspondences with their lawyer, were being copied by the Prison Service and forwarded to the AGC. It is not in doubt that the courts have ruled that the Prison Service has no right to copy correspondences and forward them onto the AGC without the prisoner’s consent. Mr. Datchi and his group have launched a civil action against the AGC. Its clear that there are two separate issues here. One, is Mr. Datchi’s crime of having been caught with heroin and the other is violation of the basic rights that should have been accorded to Mr. Datchi and his group. These are two separate issues that need to be resolved separately. One could say both are equally important to society – one involves the “scourge of drugs” and the other involves “violation of legal process.” I will stress that I am not a qualified lawyer and I would be interested in what a qualified legal professional might say. However, as one of those issues involves ending Mr. Datchi’s life, it comes across as common sense that the civil action against the AGC be resolved before Mr. Datchi’s execution. So, given that this was what would be the logical way of dealing with the two separate affairs, how was sit such that Mr. Datchi was informed on 21 April 2022 that he was to be executed on 29 April 2022, when the court system knew that he was involved in a civil proceeding against the AGC on 20 May 2022. Logic has it that the civil action set for 20 May 2022 would be highly compromised if one of the key players in that action was to be removed. Why would the AGC, with all the resources of the state at its disposal need to go through all of this to hobble the civil action that is be heard on 20 May 2022? The impression that the AGC was trying to hobble the Civil Action of 20 May 2022 was further compounded by the urgency in which an appeal against the court ordering a stay of the execution was filed. An account of the dialogue between the AGC and the three judges is recorded on the Facebook page of Mr. Too Xing Ji, an activist who was at court on 28 October 2022. I am tired. It has been a very long day. But because there has been a dearth of reporting about Datchinamurthy's case in the Singapore media, I feel I owe it to the public to recount what happened. At 930am this morning, Dathchinamurthy appeared in person before Justice Hoo Sheau Peng in the High Court of Singapore, to argue his application for a stay of execution and permission to commence judicial review against the Government of Singapore for trying to hang him while he had a pending case against them in HC/OS 188/2022. In short, Datchinamurthy along with 12 other inmates on Death Row were suing the Singapore Government for various declarations and damages, for the Singapore Prison Service's illegal disclosure of their private prison correspondence to the Public Prosecutor's office. OS 188 was filed on 25 February 2022, and had been fixed for hearing on 20 May 2022. On 21 April 2022, Datchinamurthy was told that he would hang on 29 April 2022. Datchinamurthy sued the Singapore Government to stop his execution, saying that it was unconstitutional, as he was treated unequally as compared to the 12 other inmates in OS 188. No lawyer in Singapore would act for Datchinamurthy, in spite of the intuitive wrongness of what the State was trying to do. Suffice to say, people either did not care, and those who cared were too scared to act, because of recent cases in which personal cost orders and disciplinary proceedings were initiated against the lawyers who acted in similar stay applications. Appearing for the Attorney-General (ie the Government) were Deputy Senior State Counsel Yang Ziliang and State Counsel Pavithra Ramkumar. Datchinamurthy argued in person, by reading out his prepared written submissions. At about 1.30pm, Datchinamurthy's family learnt that Justice Hoo had allowed the application by Datchinamurthy. A man on death row, acting by himself when no lawyer would act for him, had just won against a senior Government lawyer (incidentally outperforming the track record of a significant portion of the Singapore Bar). Justice Hoo issued a 13-page grounds of decision explaining her reasoning. Datchinamurthy's family and friends rejoiced. But their joy was short lived. In short order, the Government appealed. The appeal was fixed for hearing immediately at 2.30pm before the Court of Appeal. I first heard about the appeal at about 2.50pm. I rushed over to the Court of Appeal from my office next door and got in at about 3pm. The Court of Appeal was almost empty. All parties, including the Judges, appeared by zoom. Only a few people were milling about in the public gallery. None of them appeared to be journalists. Judges of Appeal, Andrew Phang and Judith Prakash, as well as Justice Belinda Ang were presiding. When I sat down, the hearing had already started. What follows is my best attempt at a transcription of what happened at the hearing, based on the notes that I took contemporaneously. Phang JA: Let me tell you what my position is. I might be wrong, and you are of course free to disagree with me, but let me tell you what my position is. I am not a prophet. I don't know if the respondent will be needed for OS 188. None of us can tell, if his involvement will be necessary. That's the best we can do. Prakash JA: If the respondent is executed, wouldn't it cast a spanner in OS 188? Even if the Estate can continue to act for him, but how will he get a legal representative appointed in less than a month? And there are 12 other plaintiffs, but there is 1 plaintiff absent, so does it continue? What then? There will be procedural issues, apart from what Justice Phang has said. Phang JA: Some of these things are personal to him, and the Estate won't be able to do. He has to explain the letters. His lawyers may want to cross-examine, he may be cross-examined. Take a common sense view of the matter. If we don't know what will happen, then logically, we should wait and see right, because, if he is executed, then we will never know. I will be plain - somehow, that doesn't sound right. If we don't know, can you as a representative of the State, and as a representative of the State, you must have regard also to the accused's rights. This is his life, it is not a longer term of jail. Just pause and think. If you are prepared to concede that you will lose the appeal if he is needed for OS 188, but cannot tell us if he is needed, how can you then assert, he is not needed? These are the ultimate stakes. Yang: What I am hearing is the classification of OS 188... Phang JA: The question applies to the first and second categories. Let me explain. If the second category is where he needs to be involved, and we don't know if he is needed, the same analysis applies even if we take your highest case, that OS 188 must impact his conviction or sentence. Same reasoning: we don't know. It doesn't look as if it will impact, but who knows? If there is a flaw, or an irregularity, and it is serious, and it involves criminal tactics between the respondent and his counsel, it might. You say, Justice Phang, why are you speculating, and yes, we should not be speculating. But we cannot rule out that it might be possible. These are not just personal letters of the hello, how are you variety. There is correspondence between a lawyer and his client. Yang: We have described at our subs, the nature of the letters... Phang JA: Due process is a very strange but necessary creature. It is not minimal. It ensures the accused, has maximum latitude to argue his case, provided it is not abuse. And here, I really need to say, I find the first half of your submissions are strange. This is not the same kind of matter, like the one we just heard involving Nagaenthran, where it was obvious drip feeding. OS 188 was commenced well before the notice of execution, without knowledge of the date of execution. Yang: I wish to draw Your Honours' attention to the letters... Phang JA: I know. But this is not about the letters. You are asking us, without the benefit of witnesses, to look at the letters, and draw our own inferences? Because of the timing of the letters, speaking for myself, that is not appropriate. We are not trying OS 188. Maybe my sister judges think otherwise. Prakash JA: We haven't seen OS 188. We have only seen your arguments about OS 188. But in OS 188, there are 13 people. Arguments made on behalf of the others, will also affect the respondent. We don't know what principles will be raised. We don't know what will happen. We cannot decide. Phang JA: Context is everything. We don't know the consequences. What if from the testimony of the other 12, we learn that Mr Datchinamurthy had a case? It would be too late to call him back. Once he is executed, it is the end, as far as I know. Are you willing to make the argument, knowing that that is the consequence. As Justice Prakash has said, we are not trying OS 188. There is no evidence taken. There has been no cross-examination. And that is where we are. This is not a hypothetical question that we sometimes pose in law school for learning, and you would know about that, because you went to law school, and it is a good learning exercise. Here we have a real life person, and you cannot ignore that. It might be slightly different if the consequences were not so dire, but given that they are so dire, frankly I am surprised that the AG is pursuing this appeal. Yang: We are concerned by the High Court's ruling that OS 188 was a relevant legal proceeding, even though it is not for example a forfeiture proceeding... Phang JA: For forfeiture, it is clearer. It is the same party. But how can you say that it necessarily follows, that OS 188 has no involvement. Just because in forfeiture, involvement is necessary, it does not follow that all other proceedings will not involve the respondent. In [67] of Suheil, we said that you cannot abuse the process of court. If this were last minute, if the action had been conjured out of thin air, we might have taken a different view. But this one, in fairness, it was filed without knowledge of the judicial execution. Mr Yang, in fairness to you, we are not saying your case is unarguable, but this case is unusual. OS 188 stems from our observations in Gobi Avedian, about prison procedure, and that is not likely to happen every other time. Most cases will involve what the affidavit of what MHA says, and that would be the end of it. Yang: We are worried about the the scope of relevant proceedings, and how wide it would be. Phang JA: [67] of Suheil says it all depends on the facts. Here, let me read it out to you. [Phang JA proceeds to read out [67] of Suheil]. Yang: Yes Your Honour, that is what we are saying OS 188... Phang JA: Just say it. You are afraid of floodgates and abuse. Just say it. But everything is based on the facts. So we look at the facts here. It has not been tried. There is no reason to suppose his involvement will not be needed. Can it be correct for us, to arrive at an answer, when we don't have facts backing us up? This is all in the future, and it is not impossible or highly improbable that he will be involved. If you said, for example, and I am making a ridiculous example to make my point, if the condition was that Justice Phang must be able to jump across 2 HDB blocks, no reasonable person will believe that I will be involved to such an extent. I can't do that. But this is a far cry, on the face of OS 188. It is a claim by 13 people, and the respondent is one of them. It is not fabricated. It might turn out to be, yes, that nothing changes, but that is the court's decision. It is not for us to speculate. Yang: Regarding substance - at [32] of our submissions, the declarations sought in OS 188 were resolved in earlier decisions. Phang JA: But OS 188 has not been heard yet. Yang: Well, some of the prayers were sought in OS 664, and after it was withdrawn, Justice Ang in his judgment said, previous legal proceedings already dealt with the issue. Prakash JA: But this is a claim for damages. There is no suggestion the facts are made up. The letters were disclosed when they should not have been. They do not perhaps affect the earlier proceedings, but this is a separate question now. What remedy they can get, apart from the declarations. Yang: The damages are nominal. Phang JA: In civil proceedings, it is not always about the amount, but the principles that need to be vindicated. Take a step back and look at what has gone on for the last twenty minutes or so. This is all about OS 188. Except, this is not OS 188. To put it simply, this is the crux. Any other points? Yang: It all rides on whether Your Honours agree with Justice Hoo that OS 188 is a relevant legal proceeding, and as a whole group, they would not be scheduled for death. We say OS 188 is not relevant, there is no distinction between the respondent and other inmates, and in terms of scheduling, we follow the principles in Syed Suheil. Phang JA: You are not taking into account that this is unusual. This is not the vanilla sort of action. It stems from our unusual observations in Gobi about breach of prison procedure. And then this action is filed. And it is unlikely it will be filed everyday. In fact, I hope this action will not be filed everyday, because they involve very serious allegations about the prison and what has been going on. I don't want to pronounce on OS 188 at this point, but whether the respondent is involved, there is uncertainty. Whichever argument you run, it will be problematic. So whether it has to affect the sentence or not, I know you argued in the morning, and Justice Hoo delivered her judgment, and you took instructions, and your instructions were to appeal, and you are running the same arguments, and we did say, the submissions will stand as they were. But if you can give any other reason, we will listen. Though to be fair, I think those were your strongest points. If you are prepared to say, that a relevant legal proceeding must deal with the conviction or sentence, then what do we make of forfeiture proceedings? Yang: Yes, we are not pushing that point. Phang JA: And we appreciate that. You are making the arguments that you can make. You are not arguing for the sake of arguing, and I appreciate that. I wonder if my sister Judges, Justice Prakash and Ang have got any questions? Ang J: No. Prakash JA: Datchinamurthy, do I need to repeat? Phang JA: (addressing the intepreter) Was he following the exchange between the Court and Mr Yang? Datchinamurthy: (through Tamil interpreter) Yes I heard and I understood. Phang JA: And in light of all that, does he want to add anything? Datchinamurthy: I have nothing to add. Phang JA: Mr Yang, thank you for your submissions, and thank you for responding to our questions. Unfortunately, we are not with you. We agree with Justice Hoo and her decision. We will issue our detailed grounds of decision in due course. The appeal is dismissed. Please feel free to share. Open justice and all that. Hopefully, we will get the detailed GD in due course. Justice Hoo's GD should be out by tomorrow on Sg Law Watch. I will qualify that I don’t know Mr. Too personally. I came across his post via the Facebook page of a cousin. As such, I can’t verify the accuracy of his transcription. However, I notice that some of the people who have liked his post are qualified lawyers. What I will say from my personal reading and understanding of this transcription, it appears that the very senior lawyer from the AGC got a dressing down from the two of the three judges. One of the most damning statements came from Justice Andrew Phang states “Due process is a very strange but necessary creature.” Why would a judge need to explain the importance of due process to a senior lawyer from the AGC? Throughout the exchange, the judges kept telling the AGC that this was a hypothetical situation and that it was important to see through the civil action. Justice Judith Prakash states: There is no suggestion the facts are made up. The letters were disclosed when they should not have been. Justice Phang told the AGC: This is not a hypothetical question that we sometimes pose in law school for learning, and you would know about that, because you went to law school, and it is a good learning exercise. Here we have a real life person, and you cannot ignore that. It might be slightly different if the consequences were not so dire, but given that they are so dire, frankly I am surprised that the AG is pursuing this appeal. Throughout this dialogue, it is clear that the judges believe that something has not gone right between the prison service and the AGC. One of the key moments comes when Justice Phang says: This is not the vanilla sort of action. It stems from our unusual observations in Gobi about breach of prison procedure. And then this action is filed. And it is unlikely it will be filed everyday. In fact, I hope this action will not be filed everyday, because they involve very serious allegations about the prison and what has been going on. To the common man, the Justice is saying that something, somewhere has gone wrong. Due process, which is one of the things that underwrites the “rule of law,” which in turn one of the things that underwrites Singapore Society, has been violated somewhere along the line. So, just as its clear that Mr. Datchi got caught with the heroin, it should be clear that the due process of law was violated. While it is unlikely that the civil action will have an effect on the outcome of the criminal trial, the civil trial is likely to show that the state did on act in the most above-board of ways, when it came to the judicial process. It’s a good sign that the judges stood by the rule of law and ruled without fear or favour. In order for the rule of law to be maintained you need to have judges who are willing to rule according to facts. Judges who don’t do what is expedient for the rich and more importantly, the powerful. However, its sad to see the AGC rushing to have a man executed, particularly when the man looks like he can embarrass the government. The AGC is effectively the government’s lawyer. It should be a body that people see as playing an active role in ensuring that the law works for people regardless of who they are. It should not, as it appears to be in this case, being seen as a body that protects the interest of powerful people at the expense of the poor and unfortunate.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able 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.      Read More →