Police ignorant of law but charge activists anyway

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Thursday, 28 January 2010

Singapore Democrats

We have reported in this website the incompetence of our police officers when it comes to their prosecution of their cases against the SDP leaders and activists.

They lied in their testimonies, don't know what offences the defendants had committed, copied each other's reports (together with the errors), and hid behind imaginary glass doors. Their capers would be funny if they weren't so serious. And if you think they are ludicrous, wait till you read what happened in the latest round.

In the on-going trial involving the Tak Boleh Tahan protest outside Parliament House on 15 Mar 08, ASP Yew Ai Choo, the Investigating Officer, had charged the Defendants with taking part in an illegal assembly and procession.

The protest was over the escalating cost of living in Singapore in 2008 and held in conjunction with the World Consumers Rights Day. It took place, as ASP Yew stated in his charge, within an area that prohibits the gathering of more than one person

This area (bounded by North Bridge Road, Stamford Road, Connaught Drive, St Andrew's Road, Parliament Lane and the Singapore River) is described in a Schedule published by the Government in 2005.

There was one small hitch. ASP Yew was not aware that there was such an area. Indeed he didn't even known that the Schedule existed. Under cross-examination by Dr Chee Soon Juan, the police officer admitted that he had no idea that there was such a law.

Chee: When did you first see the Schedule?

Yew: In March 2008.

Chee: Was it during your investigation of the case that you first saw it?

Yew: Yes.

Chee: So prior to 15 March 2008, you did not see this Schedule?

Yew: Yes.

Chee: If u did not see the Schedule before 15 March 2008 you would not know of the area described in the Schedule, would you?

Yew: Yes, I was not aware.

Chee: Is this the same Schedule that you refer to in your charge?

Yew: Yes

Mind you, this was not a junior officer who had only an incidental interest in the case. Mr Yew was a senior officer at the Central Police Division assigned to investigate it.

The charge also stated that the Defendants "ought reasonably" to have known that there was no permit given for the event.

Isn't it the height of hypocrisy that ASP Yew expected the Defendants to reasonably know something when he didn't know about the gazetted area that he himself had referred to in his charge?

This might be something one would expect to read in a comic book. But alas, it was all too real. How do the police charge someone when they don't know the law themselves?

That was not all. Even though he had seen the Schedule and relied on it in his charge, he didn't know that it contained a non-existent road.

In 1999, "Parliament Lane" was changed to "Old Parliament Lane". An official from the Finance Ministry (which is responsible for changes of road names) had testified that she had written a letter to all the relevant government agencies to inform them of the alteration.

In 2005, however, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) was still using "Parliament Lane" in the Schedule, signed by Second Permanent Secretary Mr Benny Lim, when the road had not been in existence for six years.

It is open to the Defence to argue that because of this, the area outside Parliament House was never a gazetted area on 15 March 2008. And since the charge relies on the Schedule, it is an erroneous charge that cannot stand.

If there was a prize for incompetence, the MHA and police would kill the competition.

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Comments (11)

Thu 28 Jan 2010 9:30 AM | nobody

Aiyoh! It is like that one lah! The despicable million-dollar-miw only know how to copy, copy, copy, copy and copy without real and profound understanding from the developed international communities and again tweak and twist to their own benefits so as to achieve barbaric, barbarous and atrocious control of Singapore under the guise of democratic “erected” ruling party to govern Singapore.

Just an analogy to illustrate the synergy that the contemptible million-dollar-miw imposed on grooming their so-called elite talents for political office holders or commercial corporate honchos under the disguise of meritocracy educational system as follow:

Most of the doctors to be trained by the idiotic local university have been pre-selected during their primary or secondary school’s attendance. (Fake reason due to large cost involved in training a doctor as well as glamorous and enviable career after graduation, real reason well paying jobs with high social status and respectable prospect) I encounter a Canadian who questions the wisdom behind this type of pre-selection procedures:

A: How can we pre-select a person and trained a person to be a doctor without knowing whether he/she has the gene, passion, natural ability, etc, etc to be a “professional” doctor?

B: It is really simple you just select someone belong to your clique and SPOON-FEEDS him/her continuously and relentlessly with all the “requirements and pre-requisitions” to be a “mediocre” doctor. As long as he/she memorized all the materials/notes/information spoon-fed to him/her, don’t you think he/she can be a doctor in due course, do you?

Does this apply to the scenario and synergy that the senior police officer who does not know the laws in-relation to the case that he is tasked to investigate. Proliferation and mutate their cronies to take on important and well paying positions by cloning of ignorant and obedient puppets

Finally, that’s the main point that the New-York Bar Association wants to impress upon Singapore during its endeavor here, Singapore must know the RULE of LAW and not RULE by Law, sad to say that is actually those idiotic main-land-Chinese have been practicing in China: RULE BY LAW!!!

Thu 28 Jan 2010 9:51 AM | maxchew - Best Police Force in SEAsia?

And yet our great scholar-CP Khoo Boon Hui in his swansong interview in the 144th ST yesterday, BOASTED about how wonderful and smart his officers and men are. How they have improved (through his brilliance) vastly from before he took over......
What crap! what a self-serving hypocrite!
All he did well was to serve obediently his masters WKS, LHL and the old Emperor in going all-out to make life miserable for the Opp members esp Dr CSJ and the SDP!
Disgusting! is this what scholars are only capable of?

Thu 28 Jan 2010 12:45 PM | BryanT

Based on the article (ie. at least from this side of the story), it seems true that ASP Yew, to put it crudely, screwed up. I hope that he has learned a lesson from this incident, and that the rest of the Police Force will do so too, especially if they are to be deployed for similar duties. As a public servant, there is no excuse for not preparing oneself for his assigned tasks. We must thank SDP for the opportunity to let our public servants learn a valuable lesson about the need for thorough preparation (especially against those who are not out to EXPLOIT loopholes in the laws, but deliberately to BREAK them).

Ill-preparedness and possible dereliction of duty aside, it is indisputable that the Defendants “ought reasonably” to have known that no permit was given for the event, and that there were legal restrictions imposed by the said Schedule. Otherwise, there can be no civil disobedience to speak of in the first place.

Anybody who is out to carry out civil disobedience activities must surely know beforehand what he is trying (hard) to disobey. He must be well versed in what the law stipulates. If the misnamed road now allows the SDP group to be let off on a legal technicality (...heaven forbid), then SDP would have failed to accomplish its cherished objective. (Then would it not be a competence issue too?)

But let me restate my stand that SDP is spending unduly energy on the wrong agenda and time in the wrong places (ie. court and prison). Other opposition parties are busy presenting their views and proposals on the economy, education and other social issues by meeting people physically, organising seminars and giving talks. This allows the people to offer their views and input and also understand what value the parties brings to the nation.

Some parties have even perceived that they have been able to influence the government in policies concerning economic growth, workforce productivity and foreign workers. They hope these will go towards making the country better.

In contrast, SDP is still unproductively engaged in trying to ridicule the police force and MHA to justify itself.

Thu 28 Jan 2010 9:11 PM | AhKow

BryanT says:
"But let me restate my stand that SDP is spending unduly energy on the wrong agenda and time in the wrong places (ie. court and prison). Other opposition parties are busy presenting their views and proposals on the economy, education and other social issues by meeting people physically, organising seminars and giving talks. This allows the people to offer their views and input and also understand what value the parties brings to the nation".

Er have you forgotten that it was the police that it was the police who chose to arrest the SDP. The SDP did NOT CHOSE to be in court.

Also have your forgotten ths SDP had already been organising seminars to make their economic argument. Even way back when the PAP had MPs they were already been presenting economic plan -- remember the famous health care debate where the SDP was fined. Or Chees book about how

So much of your argument seemed to be a case of trying to -- using your own words -- agitate (read violent) to destroy SDP?

Fri 29 Jan 2010 2:41 AM | F C D Chan

Well, even the police who is the enforcer of the law lied in court and yet they expect to bring criminals to justice.

i would like to see some of these law enforcers being charged with perjury one day but with our current court of law, sadly, it will not be in my life time.

Fri 29 Jan 2010 5:20 AM | AhKow

BryanT says: "Anybody who is out to carry out civil disobedience activities must surely know beforehand what he is trying (hard) to disobey. He must be well versed in what the law stipulates. If the misnamed road now allows the SDP group to be let off on a legal technicality (...heaven forbid), then SDP would have failed to accomplish its cherished objective. (Then would it not be a competence issue too?)"

Er bryan, even the police themselves -- guardian of the law -- don't even know that a law has been broken in this instance. So you are now saying that what the SDP is doing in this instance is they have broken the law.

Now where is your logic? First you say SDP is deliberately breaking law that is a no-no.

Now it has shown there may be no law to be broken and you say the SDP should make up its own law? If they don't make up a none existence law you now say the SDP is guilty of breaking a non-existence law?

So like I say before are you -- using your own word -- agitating (read violet) to destroy the SDP?

Fri 29 Jan 2010 8:11 AM | seebeng - Armchair critic BryanT....

BryanT,

You’re proving to be more and more of an armchair critic, out of touch with ground reality.

More than 85 per cent of Singaporeans live in HDB flats and SDP is visible in housing estates, markets and hawker centres in addition to facing numerous court cases thrust upon it by the anti-people, neo-con PAP.

On the other hand, the PAP MPs, afraid to face the people are cocooned in their air-con offices trying to choose which golf club to go next. They dare not meet the people without security protection and uniformed police to even protect their cars while they occasionally attend their "meet-the-people" charade usually conducted by their minions.

Without the bootlicking media and the total control of the entire state machinery, the neo-liberal PAP and its surrogates would have been dumped long ago into the dustbin of history.

Fri 29 Jan 2010 11:08 AM | BryanT

Ah Kow, thanks for your comments. Please allow me to address some of your points.

If you read carefully, my point was that SDP was consciously out to break the law, because that is what civil disobedience is about – breaking laws. It has the right to argue that certain laws are not constitutional, as it has done so, ad nauseam.

But SDP now observes that the law is not updated because of a street name, and perhaps legally flawed. My point is this - if there is no proper enforceable law, SDP had wasted its time and effort trying to break something when it took to the streets. I am concerned that SDP might be let off on a small legal technicality (that can be easily corrected).

I really don't know whether SDP is fighting a street-naming game, or putting forward an argument based on (lack of) constitutional backing for the law. Perhaps it has realised the inefficacy of the latter.

As to the issue of my stand on SDP members breaking laws in the form of civil disobedience - it is unchanged. I still think it is wrong and misguided, not to say fruitless. I was sparing the readers here a repetition (ad nauseam) of my position. Besides, it would have been off-topic as this article is about purportedly incompetent policemen and wrong addresses.

By the way, I duly did a search on yoursdp using the search-words “SDP, seminar”. Of the 22 results, only one turned up looking relevant – SDP's flyer-distribution at NUS Law Faculty and the LKYSPP. But then the seminar referred to in that
article was Philip Jeyaretnam's, not SDP's. I know SDP held one at Copthorne last year, but that was more a soul-searching exercise for the opposition. Maybe you can remind us when the last “relevant” SDP seminars were that discussed issues of interest and concern to the people, eg. education, housing, employment, etc.

I agree that the books written by CSJ and (conveniently) adopted as policy positions by SDP make that latter stands out from the other opp parties. The comprehensiveness and depth of their contents is outstanding, even if we may disagree with some of the arguments and proposals. But books are ….. still books. Who reads them (except you and I)?

Yes, my purpose in writing is to point out the flaws, misguidedness and irrelevance of some of SDP's methods and ideology; but, no, it is not intended to destroy it.... not that I can or claim to be able to.

(Dr Chee, thanks for publishing my first comment)

Fri 29 Jan 2010 9:22 PM | AhKow

BryanT says:"If you read carefully, my point was that SDP was consciously out to break the law, because that is what civil disobedience is about – breaking laws. It has the right to argue that certain laws are not constitutional, as it has done so, ad nauseam."

Ok I an going to read you CAREFULLY. First you say you are against breaking the law. You then say that the SDP has the right to argue laws are unconstitutional. So by that your are suggesting that "laws" -- by that I guess you mean statue" -- can also be unlawful but you seemed to suggest you are OK with that. Remember a constitution, is it self a body of law. A statute law is subordinate to constitutional law. So by your logic it is Ok for statute law to "break" constitutional law. In other words, you agree that breaking law is OK. But if the SDP did it, it is not OK.

You also say that the SDP can argue about it. Well what do you think they are doing in a court of law? Talk cock sing song? Isn't a court of law the place to argue law. And if the SDP shows up flaw in legal argument Not OK. Where is your logic?

BryanT says: "But SDP now observes that the law is not updated because of a street name, and perhaps legally flawed. My point is this - if there is no proper enforceable law, SDP had wasted its time and effort trying to break something when it took to the streets. I am concerned that SDP might be let off on a small legal technicality (that can be easily corrected)".

On the one hand, by your argument, the law is sacrosanct -- cannot be wrong. Now we have a law that cannot be properly enforceable, you still say that the SDP has broken an unenforceable law? How do you break something that don't exist?

Also you now seemed to have issue with so-call letting off on a technicality. Well as you believe that law is sacrosanct, and if the SDP is acquitted on lawful ground, still not OK. So question how can you then say the SDP must follow the law but if the law allow the SDP to be deemed not guilty NOT OK? Where is the logic?

BryanT: "I really don't know whether SDP is fighting a street-naming game, or putting forward an argument based on (lack of) constitutional backing for the law. Perhaps it has realised the inefficacy of the latter."

Of course there is a point to it all I can only say you are too blinkered to see.

The constitution as it stands now permit free speech and right of assembly, and more importantly, whilst it provide for state bodies to interpret aspects of laws -- namely statute -- there are limits. So questioning the guardian of the law, namely the police, in its ability to appreciate the law goes into demonstrating whether discriminatory application by them goes against the constitution. If the police themselves don't know what is entail in the law and they go making it up in a chin chye manner it is OK? I can only guess in your case that is OK as long as it is aimed that the SDP?

If you like to have laws that can be made on a chin chye -- make it up as you go along basis -- then maybe you should say so. Why pretend to be principled? On the one hand you say you don't like something in principle but on the other hand, when the actions of SDP are in line with your principle, you than try to find fault for the sake of it. Case in point, the SDP is lawfully arguing the case in court and when the law is found wanting, you now say they should not be let free because it is only a technicality. So which is which?

Again in your own words are you agitating (read violence) to bring down the SDP?

Sat 30 Jan 2010 9:59 AM | stevewu77

Any time we cannot prosecute and convict a person in the face of the evidence is a lapse in the rule of law.
Indeed no person is ABOVE the law, not the former Taiwan president, not the recently departed Sultan of Johor, not the Thai, not the PAP government nor the Singapore Police.

In the Penal Code (Cap 224), there is a provision in s 211 for the false charge of offence made with intent to injure which should be the concern of parties indulgent in falsehood.

211. Whoever, with intent to cause injury to any person, institutes or causes to be instituted any criminal
proceeding against that person, or falsely charges any person with having committed an offence, knowing that
there is no just or lawful ground for such proceeding or charge against that person, shall be punished with
imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years, or with fine, or with both; and if such criminal
proceeding be instituted on a false charge of an offence punishable with death, or imprisonment for 7 years or
upwards, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 7 years and shall also be liable to fine.

Thu 04 Feb 2010 12:06 AM | quantum - Sedition Act on the Internet

>> The police is taking action now in cyberspace ....$5000 + 3 years

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_486005.html

Feb 3, 2010
3 held for racist remarks
Three Chinese youths aged between 17 and 18 years have been arrested for posting racist remarks on 'Facebook', a popular social networking website. -- PHOTO: AP

THREE Chinese youths aged between 17 and 18 years have been arrested for posting racist remarks on 'Facebook', a popular social networking website.

Following a report lodged on Jan 30, police conducted extensive enquiries and managed to establish the identity of the suspects. All three were arrested on Jan and have since been released on bail. Investigations are on-going, said police in a statement on Wednesday night.

Under the Sedition Act, anyone found guilty of promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore can be fined up to $5,000 or jailed up to three years, or both, if convicted.

Commander of Bedok Police Division, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Police, Teo Chun Ching said: 'Police take a very stern view of acts that could threaten the social harmony in Singapore. The Internet may be a convenient medium to express one's views but members of the public should bear in mind that they are no less accountable for their actions online.'