Hello, my name is
Yan Jun. In this video, I am going to talk about the judicial corruption in
Singapore. My intention is to ensure that the every public official, including
the founding father of Singapore, the late Prime Minister Lee Yuan Yew, is
subjected to the rule of law.
Here the judicial corruption
refers to the Supreme Court’s bias in favor of the Singapore Government. I
understand Singapore has a reputation for absence of corruption so I will
present solid evidence to back my claim.
On the 3rd
of November 2015, I reported the evidence to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong by
email and requested for investigations. A large number of local and
international organizations were copied in on this email.
On the 30th
of November, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (the AGC) replied in their email at
Paragraph 3 “In your Emails, you have
alleged that the Supreme Court was biased in favour of the Government when it
heard the Suit. These allegations are spurious” and at Paragraph 6 that “your unfounded allegations of bias on the
part of the Supreme Court are in contempt of court and you are hereby warned
that if you continue to make these allegations, contempt proceedings can be
brought against you”. 4 days later, I wrote to the Prime Minister for the 3rd
time to stand by my corruption allegations but the AGC didn’t take any action
against me.
So I have enough reason to believe the Government is covering up
its misdeed. It seems to me that posting a video on the web is the only way to
get the message across to the general public and that explains why you are
watching this video.
This video is
divided into 3 parts. In the first, I will present evidence of the judicial
corruption. In the second part, I will explain briefly why Singapore has done
well in international anticorruption surveys. The third part is my conclusion.
Part
I:
Evidence of judicial corruption
The former chair
of Transparency International stated in 2007 that judicial corruption means the voice of the innocent goes unheard,
while the guilty act with impunity. For
a layman, it is safe to say judicial corruption equals to a judge’s or a
court’s bias towards a party.
My evidence of
judicial corruption is the actual bias displayed by the Supreme Court in a police
wrongful arrest case. In this confirmed wrongful arrest case, the Supreme Court
punished the victim (or me) and awarded the police in order to cover up a huge
mistake made by the late Prime Minister Lee Yuan Yew in interpreting the
Constitution of Singapore back in 1984. It is this unjust decision that clearly
demonstrates the Supreme Court’s bias in favor of the Government, or the
judicial corruption in the Supreme Court.
Now I tell you how
this case came about and the critical issues of this case.
On the 19th
of July 2009, I called the police for assistance but in my flat the two police
officers refused to take my report but instead arrested me for an offence of “Breach
of Personal Protection Order (or PPO)”. I was detained in the police station
overnight and was released on bail the next day. From the arrest to the
release, I was not taken before a Court to examine whether there was a reason
for the police to arrest me. But, the PPO was later discovered to have expired
some two weeks before the arrest. While the arrest was bound to be unlawful,
the AGC insisted that the arrest was lawful in response to my complaint filed
in 2012.
On the 1st
of April 2013, I brought a suit against the police in the Supreme Court. Put it
simply, the case mainly concerns with 2 issues. The first is whether the arrest
was lawful? The second is whether I should be taken before a court to examine whether
there were reasonable grounds for this arrest? The Supreme Court encountered great
difficulty in answering the 2nd question because the international
community and the late Prime Minister have totally different answers.
The United Nations
recognizes that an arrested person is entitled to be brought before a Court
within a certain period of time (usually 48 hours) after the arrest so the
Court can decide on the lawfulness of the arrest and order his release if the
detention is not lawful. This 48 hours is meant to provide the police with
sufficient time to overcome delays in order to bring an arrested person before the
Court.
However, the late Prime
Minister took the 48-hour as sufficient time for police investigation in order to
take further action against an arrested person and as a result, the lawfulness
of the arrest hasn’t been examined by the Court since 1984. The following is
the late Prime Minister’s reasoning behind the 1984 amendments to the Constitution,
“The amendment is necessary to enable the
Police to investigate offences more thoroughly. ... By extending the limit to
48 hours, the Police will be in a better position to complete their
investigations and to carry out follow-up action”.
It is a fact that Singapore
has subscribed to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights prepared by the United Nations. But is should
note that the late Prime Minister’s erroneous
interpretation has not only contradicted the international law but also violated
the principle of Presumption of Innocence. On the 25th of August
2008, Minister for Law expressly stated in the Parliament “The Government is absolutely committed to upholding the presumption of
innocence, as a core principle in our commitment to the Rule of Law”.
Now I tell you how
the judicial corruption is evolved.
The case was heard
3 times and on the 27th of November 2014, the Court of Appeal, or
the highest court, finally ruled that the arrest was unlawful and the late Prime
Minister’s interpretation of the Constitution was correct. Shortly after the
release of the final judgment, I criticized it by proving the late PM’s
interpretation wrong. But the Supreme Court declined to respond to my criticism
by saying “Please be informed 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” and
even worse, the Supreme Court even refused
to admit the final judgment was correct but required me to comply with it. In
response, I refused to attend the subsequent hearings in order not to comply
with the final judgment voluntarily.
In this situation,
the Supreme Court issued an order in 11 June 2015 to press me to attend the
hearings, otherwise, the entire case would be dismissed. I still refused to attend
the hearing so on the 9th of July, the Supreme Court dismissed the entire
case and ordered me to pay legal fees to the police. This is how the Supreme
Court’s most unusual decision to punish the victim and to award the perpetrator
came about.
When questioned
why not to punish the police for making the wrongful arrest, the Supreme Court
answered on the 15th of September that “The lawfulness of the arrest is an issue which was supposed to be
decided at [future] trial.”. In the AGC’s letter dated the 9th
of October at Paragraph 4, the State Counsels refused to explain how to breach
an expired PPO but treated the arrest as lawful by saying “As you are aware, our position is that there was no police misconduct”.
It is safe for me to question the integrity of both the Supreme Court and the
AGC.
There are two
types of corruption, petty and grand. Petty judicial corruption usually refers
to bribery and the grand corruption involves the highest levels of government. Since
the Chief Justice was aware of this matter but didn’t intervene, it is safe for
me to conclude that the judicial corruption in the Supreme Court falls into a
category of grand corruption.
Part
II:
Why has Singapore done well in international anticorruption surveys?
I think there are
4 reasons. The first reason is the limited freedom of expression due to tightly
regulated press and media. The second reason is the plaintiff-friendly
defamation law, so even the international press prefers not to mess with
Singapore. The third reason is, most rankings, such as Corruption Perceptions
Index prepared by Transparency International, is perception based. In other
words, it doesn’t reflect how uncorrupt Singapore is but how uncorrupt the
general public think Singapore is. Forth, the Singapore government did make
serious efforts to bring endemic petty
corruption under control.
Part
III: Conclusion
Finally, my
conclusion is that the Singapore’s reputation for absence of corruption is an
artifact, and the Singapore’s experience in fighting corruption is unlikely to
be copied in other countries due to a lack of grand judicial corruption. Thank
you.
