I read this on the Yawning Bread website regarding the ban on podcasting and videocasting:
”Do these laws put up by Pap man Balaji Sadasivan violate the Constitution anyway?
One thing that we may be overlooking is that these laws may be in violation of the Constitution anyway.
The Constitution is supreme over our laws. If a law violates the Constitution, that law is null and void [3]. In that case, it’s pointless for a minister to try to clarify how the law would be applied.
Clause 14 (1)(a) of Singapore’s Constitution says, ‘every citizen of Singapore has the right to freedom of speech and expression.’
A little further down, a few exceptions to the above guarantee are stated:
’Parliament may by law impose… on the rights conferred by clause (1) (a), such restrictions as it considers necessary or expedient in the interest of the security of Singapore or any part thereof, friendly relations with other countries, public order or morality and restrictions designed to protect the privileges of Parliament or to provide against contempt of court, defamation or incitement to any offence;’
It’s worth noting that no exception is provided to the free speech provision on the grounds that certain speech is political. It’s hard to see a constitutional basis for circumscribing speech just because it promotes any political or even party political point of view. And speech includes podcasting and videocasting.”
So the constitution already stated very clearly that it is ILLEGAL to make a law that bans podcasting and videocasting becouse of political reasons. Politics was never ever allowed by the constitution as a reason that could be given by the government to control free speech of its citizens.
So it looks like the PAP screwed up again big time. This PAP guy Balaji is really amazing and his speeches always put me off. Isn’t it a crime for the PAP to break the constitution of Singapore?This new law should not be left unchallenged.
FELIX CAT