My email to Privy Council dated May 27, 2015 for assistance against judicial corruption

 Attachment: Yan Jun's bundle of evidence

From: Yan Jun [mailto:medp1128@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 4:31 PM
To: The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
Cc: SUPCOURT Registry (SUPCOURT); AGC_Civil ; Ministry of Law of Singapore; Mickey Spiegel (Human Rights Watch); Gail Davidson (Lawyers Rights Watch Canada); Alejandro Ponce (World Justice Project); Transparency International; IMD World Competitiveness Center; Helen Boaden (BBC); Jon Fasman (The Economist); Jeremy Grant (Finacial times) ; Patrick McDowell (The Wall Street Journal)
Subject: An unusal request to the Privy Council from Singapore (Concerns over the practice of the Rule of Law in Singapore)

 

Dear The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,

 

With great respect, I turn to the Privy Council for help.

 

My request

I would request the Privy Council, in the interest of justice, to examine the correctness of a final judgment (Yan Jun v Attorney-General of Singapore 2014 [SGCA] 60) made by the Court of Appeal of Singapore. I am aware that the Privy Council has no authority to touch on the judgment.

 

Reason for my request

My unusual request is caused by the unusual conduct of the Supreme Court (SC) of Singapore. On the one hand, the SC has repeatedly refused to admit the correctness of this judgment; on the other hand, the SC has pressed me to accept it. According to the Rule of Law, the law must be clear, and the government and its officials must be accountable under law. In fact, I have already conclusively prove the judgment wrong.

 

Singapore was ranked No. 10 in World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law index 2014. I understand that it is very hard to convince an ordinarily prudent person of the content of this letter, so a reliable way is for this person to independently evaluate the merits of the judgment (2014 [SGCA] 60, Attachment p.22-66) and the merits of my comments/criticism on it (The Appellant’s comments on the Judgment, Attachment p.67-74). With great respect, the judgment is more than unreasonable but it irrational.

 

Significance of the judgment

This judgment has denied the arrested person’s fundamental right to be produced before the Court for independent judicial examination on the reason for the arrest (or an individual’s Constitutional right against the arbitrary arrest and detention). While it was held that an individual’s right against arbitrary arrest and detention must be balanced against police investigation for public interest purposes, no post-arrest investigation is required because the reason for the arrest has already been established before the arrest.

 

Based on Presumption of Innocence, any warrantless arrest is illegal and must be subjected to independent judicial examination on the legality of the arrest. Singapore law minister conformed in 2008 that the Presumption of Innocence was a core principle of the government’s commitment to the Rule of Law. (Para 16 of the oral answer)

 

The 48 hours after the arrest are used for police investigation or for laying formal charge against the suspect, on the contrary, the 48 hours provide the police with flexibility to overcome the unavoidable delays in order to subject the suspect to independent examination, so way the suspect will be protected from arbitrary arrest and detention by the police.

 

Duty of the Privy Council

I understand that the Privy Council has no duty to consider my request. This case concerns with the individual’s fundamental right to liberty (Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human right), so I would greatly appreciate it if the Privy Council considers my request in the interest of justice. 

 

I stand by every word in this letter. To show the truthiness of the content, I copy in on this email a number of agencies including the SC, Singapore Ministry of Law, Press, the human rights organizations and Research organizations on the Rule of Law.    

 

Thank you very much for patience and attention.

 

Regards,

 

Yan Jun

(Singapore NRIC: S7684361I)

 

*******************

 

The following account is about the course of the case. It is not meant for the Privy Council but for the Press and the organizations on the Rule of Law and the human rights.

 

I hope that the human rights organizations (Human Rights Watch, Lawyers Rights Watch Canada) pay attention to the individual’s right against arbitrary arrest and detention in Singapore. The research organizations (World Justice Project, Transparency International, IMD, International Bar Association) may wish to examine the SC’s adherence to the Rule of Law in order to strength the rule of law. 

 

Source of the evidence

1.      The evidence included in this email comes from my first-hand experience of a false arrest case against the Singapore police/government. I have represented myself so have contacted directly the SC and the Attorney-General’s Chambers (the AGC, or the defendant).

 

Basic information

2.      There is only one English report of this case, the AsiaOne’s online report Man seeks $1.22m in damages from A-G for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution. Basically, on 19 July 2007, I called police for assistance but two police officers refused to take my report but instead arrested me for an offence of “Breach of Personal Protection Order (PPO)”. It was later discovered that the PPO was a temporary order and had already expired two weeks before the arrest and I didn’t used any violence. So I brought a suit against the Police. For details, please see Para 1-15 of 2014 [SGCA] 60 , or the attached Yan Jun’s Bundle of Evidence at Page 27-30, Para 1-15.

3.       

	Case #	Time and Venue	Judge	Outcome
1st hearing	S 257/2013	High Court (3 Jul, 2013)	Assistant Registrar(AR)	Striking out most of my claims due to limitation period for filing the case.
1st Appeal	RA 227/2013	High Court (30 Aug, 2013)	High Court Judge	Dismissal, the AR’s order stands. (2013 [SGHC] 245)
2nd Appeal	CA 142/2013	Court of Appeal (9 May, 2014)	Appellant Judge	Dismissal, the AR’s order stands. (Judgment 2014 [SGCA] 60 appeared online on 27 Nov, 2014)

Table. 1 The Course of the case S 257/2013

 

Substantive Rule of Law

4.      The Court of Appeal (CA), or the highest Court, reserved their decision for 6 months and informed me to collect the judgment on 28 November 2014 [Attachment, Page 3, Para 1]. On 3 December, I informed the CA by email that their judgment was seriously flawed and included my comments/criticism (The Appellant’s comments on the Judgment, Attachment, P 67-74) as an attachment[P 4, Para 2-3]. I also requested the CA to explain in public their Constitutional interpretation [P 4, Para 4]. On December 15, the SC replied that “the contents of the email and the attachment have been placed before the Court. The Court will not be responding to the comments found in the attachment” [P 5, Para 2].

 

Procedural Rule of Law (HC/OS 108/2015/Abuse of court process)

5.      On 2 Feb 2015, I filed HC/OS 108/2015 to re-open the case on the ground that the CA’s judgment was irrational[P 6, Para 1]. While the High Court  accepted my application, on 10 April a Judge dismissed it on the ground that a High Court judge had no authority to touch on the CA’s decision[P 8]. 

 

6.      This Judge’s reasoning is apparently wrong. If he had no authority to handle my application, first, he had no authority to dismiss/approve my application. Second, my application should not be accepted by the High Court in the first place. On 15 April, I complained to the Chief Justice about the High Court’s conflicting positions over their authority [P 9, Para 1] by pointing out the first [P 9, Para 2] and second [P 9, Para 3] issue. In addition, I also requested the Chief Justice to expressly state the correctness of the CA’s decision [P 9, Para 8].

 

7.      To my surprise, the SC didn’t give a straight answer in their reply dated 20 April but “reiterate our previous replies to you” [P 11, Para 1-2].However, in “their previous reply” dated 15 April, the SC didn’t give a clear answer [P 12, Para 2-3]. When I claimed on 19 May that HC/OS 108/2015 was an abuse of process [P14 , Para 5], the SC simply ignored my accusation [P 13, Para 1-4].

 

Right against arbitrary arrest and detention (48 Hours rule)

8.      While the former Prime Minister of Singapore explained in 1984 that the 48 hours in the Article 9(4) of the Constitution was meant to facilitate police investigation and the following actions such as laying formal charge against the suspect [See 2014 [SGCA] 60, Para 92, or Attachment, P 55, Para 92]. With great respect, the 48-hour is not for the police to gather information and to charge the suspect, but serves as a protective mechanism by subjecting the suspect to the Court to protect the suspect from arbitrary arrest and detention by the police.

 

9.      The CA’s interpretation has obviously contradicted the internationally accepted 48-Hour rule. Technically, people in Singapore may have been mistakenly denied of their Constitutional right against arbitrary arrest and detention for some 30 years as a result of an erroneous interpretation of the Constitutional back in 1984.   

 

Present situation

10.   On 6 May, I made it clear that I wouldn’t attend the following hearings because a litigant has right not to comply with an incorrect judgment [P 15 , Para 2 on attendance and P16, Para 3]. Both the SC and the AGC pressed me for my attendance. The SC ordered that the entire case will be struck out if I fail to attend the hearing on 28 May[P 17, Para 2]. The State Counsel claimed that the CA’s decision is “treated as correct, without any need for "the Supreme Court" to have "expressly stated the correctness of the CA's decision".” [P 21, Para 2, under 22 Apr 2015]. The Defendant told me that Counsel told me that “You are doing stupid thing. You are hurting yourself”. The Defendant may wish to explain why I am hurting myself by getting my own justice.   

 

11.   Thank you.

 

Yan Jun