Prof Thio Li-Ann on emergency powers and preventive detentio

I'm back SG

December 12, 2009 by admin
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During a speech made at a Law Society seminar yesterday, constitutional law expert Professor Thio Li-Ann spoke about the relationship between the rule of law and other indicators of constitutional government and good governance.

Professor Thio felt that while the law means different things to different people, “formal rule of law doesn’t provide any criteria by which you can assess whether something is or is not good law” in the context of Singapore.

While she refrained from commenting on the rule of law in Singapore, Professor Thio noted that the Singapore Constitution “permits instances where the State is beyond law and judicial control, as in the case of emergency powers and preventive detention laws, where the needs of the State come first and foremost.”

“The courts do have a role in how these powers are reviewed … It’s not a huge role. The courts cannot enquire if the detention reasons are good … (but) it must be based on national security concerns,” she added.

Under the draconian Internal Security Act, anybody deemed a “threat” to the state can be detained without trial indefinitely.

The detention orders are signed by the Home Affairs Ministers and the detainees do not have the right to access to legal advice. Neither can their lawyers overturn the decision to detain them in a Singapore court.

Chia Thye Poh was detained under the ISA for 32 years, making him the longest-detained political prisoner of conscience in the world, followed by Dr Lim Hock Siew (19 years), Said Zahari (17 years) and Dr Poh Soo Kai (16 years)

(In contrast, Nobel prize laureates Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 28 years and Aung San Suu Kyi is (still) under house arrest for 13 years)

The ISA is an archaic law introduced in the 1950s by the British in Malaya and Singapore during the communist insurrection and was initially known as the Public Security Ordinance (PSO).

After the Emergency was declared over in 1960, the Malayan (now Malaysian) government replaced the PSO with the ISA with much of the same powers.

The ISA was used in 1963 under “Operation Coldstore” to detained hundreds of suspected communists in Singapore including key leaders of the opposition Barisan Sosialist such as Lim Chin Siong, Dr Lim Hock Siew, Sydney Woodhull, and Dr Poh Soo Kai.

Their arrests enabled the PAP to win the general elections held only a few weeks later.

According to declassified documents from the British National Archives, the communist threat was “played up” by then Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who allegedly tried to persuade the British High Comissioner Lord Selkrik and Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman to arrest even his former comrade Ong Eng Guan under a joint operation by the Internal Security Council in addition to several of his political adversaries in the opposition.

Lord Selkrik wrote to his superiors in London imploring them not to listen to Lee:

“Lee is probably very much attracted to the idea of destroying his political opponents. It should be remembered that there is behind all this a very personal aspect…he claims he wishes to put back in detention the very people who were released at his insistence – people who are intimate acquaintances, who have served in his government, and with whom there is a strong sense of political rivalry which transcends ideological differences.”

Selkirk’s deputy, Philip Moore, reviewed intelligence reports and concluded that there were no security reasons to detain Lim Chin Siong:

“Lim is working very much on his own and that his primary objective is not the Communist millennium but to obtain control of the constitutional government of Singapore.”

(Lim Chin Siong was never a member of the Communist Party of Malaya and in his memoirs published in 2003, CPM Secretary-General Chin Peng denied that the Barisan Sosialist was ever controlled by the CPM and neither had he met Lim before in person)

[Source: The Fajar Generation by Dr Poh Soo Kai, Tan Jing Quee and Koh Kay Yew]

The last time the ISA was used against the opposition was in 1988 under “Operation Spectrum” when over 20 social activists and members of the Workers’ Party were arrested for plotting a “Marxist Conspiracy” to subvert the Singapore government, one of whom was a former Solicitor-General of Singapore Mr Francis Seow.

The charges were never quite proven and even key figures in the establishment such as S Dhalabanan (a former minister), Tharman Shanmugaratham (current Finance minister) and Walter Woon (current Attorney-General) have expressed sceptisms about the case.

The ISA is now used sparingly to counter the growing threat from terrorism.

The Malaysian Bar Association has spoken out ferociously against the continued existence of the ISA in Malaysia and calls for its immediate abolition and replacement with an “anti-terrorism” act to deal specifically with terrorists.

The Singapore Law Society has remained eerily silent on the issue so far. Under the law, Singapore lawyers are only permitted to comment on legislative matters if their opinions are specifically sought after by the government.

News source: Channel News Asia, 11 December 2009

4sg SG

But in the SPH book "Men in White", there was a part on Lim's and Chin's clandestine meeting in a taxi. So who is right?

Atobe SG

But in the SPH book "Men in White", there was a part on Lim's and Chin's clandestine meeting in a taxi. So who is right?

The SPH book "Men in White" was written by a senior SPH team of editorial staff that had been "sanctified" by the Stalinist-Autocrat, who even had the shameless audacity to endorse the book.

The endorsement had taken place in a highly publicised event, in which a pseudo-make up was arranged between the "victor" and the "vanquished" - all done without a word of apology offered to those who were politically castrated, and whose personal ordeals formed the major part to the book.

Atobe SG

December 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Headlines