Some of the proposed changes to the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) make me wonder just how far this government will go to tilt the playing field in their own favour, even when it means compromising on the fundamental rights that people in many other developed countries enjoy. The CPC is the law which governs how the police should handle persons accused of crimes, among other things.
Clause 258 of the new CPC allows for statements from accused persons to be admitted as evidence in court even if the accused was not told that he was not obliged to make the statement, that the statements could be used against him, or if the recording officer did not fully comply with the rules governing the way statements are collected.
In the US, police officers are obliged to issue the Miranda warning when they arrest suspects and before they are interrogated. The Miranda warning will be familiar to many who watch a lot of American TV. It reads: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you…”
Clause 258 renders it completely unnecessary for our police to inform suspects of such rights. As far as the government is concerned, they only need to show that the statement from the accused was not made as the result of a threat, inducement or promise. However they have turned down proposals to videotape all interrogations, despite the ease of doing so with today’s digital technology.
It is amazing that the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) could baldly say that “there’s no incentive for police officers to practise deception”. How did they reach the conclusion that there wouldn’t be such an incentive, when everything is our system is skewed towards securing fast convictions? MinLaw’s argument is that we have “one of the most highly admired police forces in the world”! That is truly a non sequitur argument — it just doesn’t follow.
As for the right to a lawyer (an attorney), it is a right only in a very superficial sense, since the accused can be denied the right to see his lawyer for the duration of the investigation period, and after he has given all his potentially self-incriminating statements to the investigators. The revised CPC does not make it any easier for the accused to get assistance from a lawyer earlier. It makes it only marginally easier for the defence lawyer to obtain the statements his client gave to the investigators.
In Singapore, a defence lawyer is provided to destitute accused persons only in capital (death penalty) cases. In all other cases, accused persons have to rely on the charity of the Law Society.
I am all for strict punishment for criminals, especially those who commit violent acts against others. However a person is only a criminal after he has been sentenced for his crime by a judge. Not everyone who is accused of crimes is a criminal. Until he is sentenced in court, he should be given a fair chance to defend himself without having the rug pulled from under him.
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This article by Gerald Giam first appeared on geraldgiam.sg and we thank him for allowing us to reproduce it here
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Citizens should petition their MP to vote against the Amendments. If not we will vote them out of office. TQ.
Great.
This is tantamount to declaring dictatorship in Singapore.
From now on anybody can be arrested and harassed to confess to committing a crime.
What is the point of making petition to the one-party PAP system when we, Singaporeans, can easily vote in alternative parties to vote against the passing of unfair bill. Anyway, such opportunity is only once in 5 years for us to exercise our rights. Don’t throw it away when it comes – about soon.
The whole reform of the Criminal Procedure Code is contrary to all and long established common law precepts evolving through centuries of refinements in every Commonwealth country. Freedom always overide the denial of freedom.
Where there is weighing balance of allowing the accused his or her freedom as opposed to denying the same to the arrested, the law shall ALWAYS allow the PREFERRED advantage of the accused being afforded of his or her freedom.
Why?
The accused is NOT a criminal until convicted in the court of law.
This proposed amendment put the cart before the horse – the implied unproven guilt of the accused must be extracted by all or any means contrary to established common law practice of judicial fairness before the matter comes to the court.
The police is no longer a public servant but the determining “judge” of law which he or she has no comprehension of legal precepts well tested in case law history. Conviction in criminal law is NOT just a question of fact but also a question of law.
For example, kids underaged sex between boys and girls, is the Police to decide who to charge and what law to apply to assess culpability of crime? Is it to charge the underaged girl for seducing the boy ( just like the foreign maid had sex with 12 year old boy of her employer) or charge the boy for “raping” the girl when the boy (at 10 years of age) is incapable of mental criminal intent ( mens rea) of rape just like a drunkard or mentally insane man?
It is so complicated. The law reinforced dictatorship.
great despotic country to live in.
one law for the miw and another for the people, just great..reminds me of thailand, cambodia and rest of east and south east asia, long live chairman mao and kim….
Just curious, is MinLaw a contraction in common usage? The irony would be too sweet.
anonymous@ – Your view of the common law precepts is in hibernation. Perhaps you may want to read the book on the criminal justice process in the United States written by Professor Herbert Packer of Stanford University where he described two models of criminal justice process – due process and crime control. It has since been regarded as one of the most important contributions to systematic thought about criminal justice.
@Devagi
“anonymous@ – Your view of the common law precepts is in hibernation.”
Really?
Your views still reside in the medieval ages, I must conclude in contention.
http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/T/TrialbyOrdeal.aspx
Trial by ordeal.
Every other THINKING INTELLIGENT MIND will tell you that judicial application is an EVOLVING SOCIAL PHENOMENA. Like this one of how the House of Lords decision in 2000 weighs what legal precepts in findings of facts and findings of law.
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2000/13.html
And of course, you never heard of Bill Clinton’s famous but TRUTHFUL utterance – I never had “sex” with that woman – but if was false, he would have been indicted for criminal perjury.
So you obviously don’t understand how law works except by reference to some remote irrelevant ideological fixed anchor of criminality and law. Didn’t Sotomayer’s confirmation hearing in 2008 to the US Supreme Court re-aserted her legal credentials of suitability INCLUDING ‘EMPATHY”??
No need for law applications in Singapore to go back to the Stone Age, Devagi!!
So someone from the Ministry of Law is credited for saying: “there’s no incentive for police officers to practise deception” and their argument is that Singapore has “one of the most highly admired police forces in the world”!
This argument is certainly far from being world-class. On the contrary, it represents a non sequitur, as Gerald has pointed out.
Law Minister or Law Ministry, care to enlighten us?
@ rwkc
If those conduct never happens, who would have thought about that and bring it into mention in Parliamentary sitting?
Is that “mentioning” not “proof” of KNOWING AWARENESS (THAT IT DID HAPPENED AND HAPPENED ALL TOO OFTEN) of the collective learned speakers???
@ Devagi
Let me share with you one high profile case that is definitely ‘CONTEMPORARY” and not in alleged “hibernation”.
Let us share if your preferred Professor Herbet Packer’s thoughts is NOT anything beyond the pale fiction of relevance
http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/17/time/clinton.html
This impeachment trial of the then President Clinton was 1998 – 22 years after Professor Packer’s writing. And Bill Clinton was NOT impeached for perjury.
SO WHERE IS THE PLACE OF PACKER’S WISDOM in either CONTEMPORARY AND LIVELY statutory or common law applications even in the USA, let alone all other common law jurisdiction?
Other cases proving common law applications is an evolving social phenomena include the following case precedents in NZ, Australia, and Canada -all very contemporary.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/nz/cases/NZBSA/2008/43.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=^kia%20ora%20%20%20fuck%20your%20mother
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/calling-police-fing-pigs-not-offensive-oshane-20100507-uiu8.html
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fallout-over-foul-language-charge-being-dismissed-20100504-u55h.html
and this Canadian Supreme Court decision
http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2008/2008scc2/2008scc2.html
HELP YOURSELF TO THE WISDOM OF REAL WORLD LAW PRACTICES and see if you can find your bearing on “hibernation”
Waiting to hear from you.
@anonymous – Ha, ha, still harping on the medieval England and archaic laws. We’re now living in the 21st century and year 2010 to be exact. Trials are now held and heard speedily in the technological and computerised courts with audio recordings, power point presentations, etc. Please do go and visit the High Courts and see for yourself how different the courts are from medieval England. Trials are nowaday conducted in high tech environment. The judges no longer wear wigs, writing with quilt pen and painstaking recording evidence with every full stop and comma accounted for. That is why we don’t have prisoners remanded in police lockups and prisons pending trials. Everything is done at the touch of a finger tip. All the cases are cleared speedily within weeks if not days. Justice delayed is justice denied. If the courts follow the practices of medieval England and argue till the cows come home, may be you’re the most happy person but not the prisoners and taxpayers!
@Devagi
Your elegant or inelegant nonsense of technology is of no relevance TO ALL THE BLOGGERS’ DISCUSSIONS here.
We ALL are talking about law doctrines and applications, not about wigs, powerpoint, comma or full-stop which decide LEGAL OUTCOME. Any small intelligent mind knows that technology do NOT determine law outcome.
If you are incapable of debating substance of ratio decidendi applications and preferring to muddle around forms and the whimsicals, then I submit your thoughts do not merit any further discussion. Best you find entertainment in any circus for your incessantly irrelevant rantings, please.
I DON’T appreciate it.
Get real.
Let us hear from others serious minded bloggers on this thread.
@anonymous – You have missed my point. All I say is everything is at the touch of the computer screen and out pop the case laws, etc, including your archaic law precedents for the judge to evaluate and decide. Your ratio decidendi application is just a swallow and it does not make a summer in court decision. Our courts view all the evidence holistically and circumspectively You simply do not want to face the reality and thought the laws in Singapore are just based on your ratio decidendi alone.
@ Devagi
Look at your sequence paper trial of evidence
First – common law precepts in hibernation & Herbert Packer’s imperative – what relevance?
Next – spin to medieval England and archaic laws
Next – archaic law precedents & wigs, writing with quilt pen,full stop and comma etc.- what relevance?
and finally – case law precedents denial
I say to you point blank – KEEP YOUR NAKED DECEPTIVE DANCE OF TROLLING TO ANOTHER INTELLECTUALLY LESS SUBSTANTIVE FORUM.
We are debating about only law application here.
Your pattern of disruptive behaviour is obvious here. Ask TOC if you are in doubt.
I am NOT impressed. Anyone else?
@anonymous – Ha, ha, now I understand. Your whole thrust of the thread is to impress the readers by quoting one or 2 irrevelant archaic precedents and common laws which had totally nothing to do with the 2nd reading of CPC introduced in Parliament. This is not a forum for you to fake your legal knowledge and dance out of tune with the common laws you had quoted!
@Devagi
You obviously DON’T know the difference between…” quoting one or 2 ” – you are even UNCERTAIN of that “or” fact!
That speaks volumes without my further elaboration. I won’t dignify “all others” of your ignorance and arrogance.
Let the rest of TOC readers judge for themselves.
@anonymous – Agreed. Let the TOC and TR readers judge the irrelevancy of your misimpressed case laws on ratio decidendi, medieval England, Clinton case, etc, in relation to the 2nd reading of CPC in Parliament. See copy of the text of the 2nd reading in the http://www.minlaw.gov.sg website to impress your goodself!
@Devagi
Read the rigorous comments of “Dixon” at
http://geraldgiam.sg/2010/05/criminal-procedure-code-tilting-the-law-in-their-own-favour/
IF YOU UNDERSTAND JUST 1% OF THAT. But to give you a little education, here is Dixon’s closing comment.
“Therefore, the proposed clause in the Code acts in contravene to the tradition and spirit of the common law system and certainly defies the logic and soul of liberty and democracy.”
Grow up, Devagi.