Singapore Democrats

You will be executed if you carry 500g of cannabis.

What if you just carry 499g of cannabis?

What is the maximum amount of cannabis you are legally allowed to carry?

Finally!! Not only you spoke up on this matter but further linked it to irony that the PAP allowed gambling, an addiction which is just as dangerous, if not more that drugs.

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Gambling also brings misery to its victims but we don't execute casino operators. We even glamorise the vice by legalising it and disguising gaming joints as resorts.
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Well done, SDP!! Do continue to highlight the inconsistencies with policy making within the PAP.

I believe you are doing a sterling job. My worry is that its falling on deaf ears. Nothing will change until after the passing of LKY.
Nothing.
Then perhaps a new breed will be in place. More important a new Singaporean..the foreigners..will then start to realise what its all about. This will take a generatiion or two.
Some may not be around to see the Promise Land..so to speak..bu our childrens children will.
Meantime, unless the average sporean gets to vote..it will be business as usual.

There are so many things that FEEL so WRONG about the death penalty in general, and the MANDATORY death penalty in particular. In the theory of natural justice, what FEELS wrong is frequently - and a word of caution that it is not always - an indicator that something is terribly wrong.

Trust your instincts, in other words.

I'll first admit that I'm still only in the preliminary stages of evaluating the legal aspects (and implications) of these issues. (If credentalism is important here, I'll say right now that while I'm not a lawyer, I did take two courses in law meant for non-law grads; the focus was on the common law system that also happens to be the basis of Singapore's legal system. Supposedly.)

There are actually three - and I'll add a fourth later - different drug-related offences that are frequently being confused with each other:

1. drug CONSUMPTION;

2. drug POSSESSION; and,

3. drug TRAFFICKING.

I do recall during Shanmugam Murugesu's case that he was caught for the POSSESSION of drugs, and not either the buying and selling of it: ie. NOT TRAFFICKING but POSSSESSION of drugs!

Yet, he was accused of the TRAFFICKING of drugs, which is ordinarily defined as the "buying, presumably a large shipment from a big-time supplier, and the selling of drugs, presumably to earn the seller large enough that it can be considered to be IMMORAL EARNINGS." (I don't know yet what the legal definition of "trafficking" is. Especially in a screwed-up justice system such as Singapore's.)

How could the ordinary meaning of "possession" been construed in law as the "trafficking" of drugs?

Yet, Shanmugam Murugesu is now dead because of this.

On to one more senseless death that we can hopefully prevent: Vui Kong's.

The only proof that he was actually trafficking in drugs can only come if he was caught a) distributing the drugs,; and b) if there was money exchanged and found on him at the time of arrest; the 'immoral earnings' large enough to be considered immoral.

Again, I don't pretend that I know the full facts, but from the reports that I have read, there was no money found on him. Not only that, there seems to be a deliberation (during his trials) about Vui Kong receiving payment ONLY after he returns to KL.

Again, was there any proof that TRAFFICIKING of drugs took place, even while I acknowledge (from the reports) that the DISTRIBUTION of drugs did.

(DISTRIBUTION of drugs is the fourth drug related crime that alluded to earlier in this post.)

The facts of this case being such, what is the legal definition of a drug trafficker?

Is someone caught merely in the possession of drugs, though not a shipment large enough to constitute trafficking, a trafficker of drugs?

Is a drug mule ( especially with no money found on him) a traffficker of drugs?

How can we kill them if these questions are not first answered?

Re: "Not only you spoke up on this matter but further linked it to irony that the PAP allowed gambling, an addiction which is just as dangerous, if not more that drugs."

And also what about the sale of alcohol?

Why aren't the Bloodfest Crew also calling for the heads of the owners of businesses serving alcohol as well as the heads of those who made alcohol legal?

Alcohol is addictive and destroys lives as well.

Or should we overlook this inconvenient fact because the PAP government can raise revenue from the sale of alcohol?

Like for another yet addictive drug that kills more people a year than the drugs deemed illegal: nicotine?

Another fundamental aspect of legal philosophy that I feel that needs to be considered, especially but not only the cases of the MANDATORY death penalty, is that of the definition of crime; I believe that revisiting the philosophical underpinnings of all aspects of public life in Singapore is of the utmost importance if we are to embark on the road to reform.

(Gosh! How wrong a turn the PAP has taken!)

In my studies, this is what I was taught to us as a simple definition of crime:

crime = mea culpa (or criminal intent) + actus reas (or criminal act)

(I can provide the details of both mea culpa and actus reas later.)

Thus, in the ENACTMENT OF LEGISLATION that defines an act to be a crime, the said legislation must provide for BOTH aspects of the definition of crime in order for a judge to convict an accused.

In LEGAL CASES, the same two aspects of what constitutes crime - mea culpa AND actus reas - MUST be shown to court to prove that a crime has (or has not) taken place. Or if the crime can be mitigated.

When it comes to the mandatory death penalty, the ONLY aspect of the definition of crime that has been legislated is actus reas: so long as the cold hard facts of having committed the acts that constitute a crime, a judge has no choice but to decide that a crime has indeed been committed. The criminal INTENT has been completely factored out of the legislation that provides for this, contary to the philosophy that should be informing this legislation.

There is absolutely no room for mitigating factors.

This brings me to a next question:

If mea culpa is unimportant at the trial stage, what about at the appeal stage/s?

Would it be a violation of legal provisions, and thus unconstitutional, if mea culpa is not considered at the appeal stage/s?

I am asking all of this because in Vui Kong's case, as with all if not most similar cases, there are actually compelling mitigating factors that would rule out much criminal intent enough to determine that a crime so grievous as to deserve death has taken palce.

Then we come to another aspect of this discussion.

ADP campaigners are always accused of being EMOTIONAL when it comes to this issue; that charge is of course to suggest that emotional is synonymous with irrational.

Yet, when has death NOT been an emotional issue, especially in the cases of the death of someone that we are close to?

Yes, the death penalty IS an emotional issue, but the fact of it being an emotional issue DOES NOT preclude campaigners from being rational at the same time.

One can be emotional AND rational at the same time.

But you can NEVER be rational and irrational simultaneously.

Indeed, I would ask if it is actually our laws and their philosophical underpinnings that are RATIONAL instead.

Well, cigarettes and alchohol fall in a different category of drugs. The dangers and damage to society is arguable, but that's for another story.

We all know the problem we currently have with gambling. Singaporeans do not know yet how to keep this impulse under control. And yet, the government choose to build casinos (read: promoting) If you really want to gamble there is jackpots at the clubs. But thats not enough!

The hypocracy is the decide to murder for a crime that curently poses less problems than gambling, WHILE legalising the latter.

They priorities are all wrong!

>>>Well, cigarettes and alchohol fall in a different category of drugs. The dangers and damage to society is arguable, but that's for another story.

Do you know how many people die of cancers every year? Cigarettes should be banned and cigarettes sellers should be killed!

I'm glad I've stood up for my 3rd son when he was accused of drug consumption while doing his NS. Imagine what will happen to him if I didn't try to interfere.. God forbid, that he could've been charge under the military court and might be given harsher punishment.

What really happened that end him up in the detention barrack lock-up for 16 days was the lack of justice system in the police force to accept a rational reason from me when I told them I have the evidence of my son's medical prescription given by his medical officer. The I.O totally rejected my offer to prove to him pending his investigation due to 'saving face' for accusing the accused? ...But luckily I didn't give up and started pressing on my son's officer. My best defense is 'why would a drug addict volunteer his N.S??' phew...

So my experience shows that sometimes, police anyhow do their work just to settle their case :(

forget to finish up the story :P Sorry

So, the ARMY decided to send another lab test and proved that it was a 'negative' (positive due to the prescribed drugs given to my son) - damn I.O !!!

Glad to hear that you stood up to the system and succeeded. My impression of the police force, and the rest of the civil service in general, is also not very positive. But I tend to attribute their behaviour as extensions of our "national" tendencies - kiasu and kiasi.

By I suppose the saving grace was seen in your conclusion, when the Army chipped in to help.

Actually, my point in telling you all about my experience is;

Vui Kong's mother should know about her son's ordeal :(

She is the most important role (no matter how impossible you all might seem to see) in this case too. Probably, she will be the only person who will spend ALL her time pleading to authorities for help in Malaysia or any where in this world.