Current Affairs
WANTED FOR MERCY: SINGAPORE AND ITS MANDATORY DEATH PENALTY
The following is an excerpt of an article posted on blog Give Life A 2nd Chance.
Published at East Asian Law Journal, Vol. 1 No. 2
By M. Ravi, Practitioner at L.F. Violet Netto, Lawyer for Yong Vui Kong and Alan Shadrake; Co-author Choo Zheng Xi
Overview: harsh substantive law unsupported by criminological statistics
Systematic penalogical data is hard to come by in Singapore, which has led the immediate past president of the Singapore Law Society to lament that “Singapore is sadly lacking a principled and transparent penal Policy because Government has not published detailed statistics of crime and punishment”.[1] Neither of Singapore’s two universities offering law degrees have a department of criminology in their law faculties.
This statistical lacunae of general criminological data is alarming, but is rendered exponentially more egregious when one considers the most controversial application of the death penalty in Singapore: that trafficking in more than a quantity of drugs prescribed in the Schedule of the Misuse of Drugs Act is sufficient for a man to hang. The uniquely draconian nature of Singapore’s “Misuse of Drugs Act” deserves some elucidation.
The first aspect of the death penalty for drug trafficking in Singapore is that it attracts not just the possibility of a sentence of death, but the mandatory death penalty.
Secondly, the mandatory nature of the death penalty for trafficking is coupled with a presumption of trafficking in cases of possession.[2] This reverses the basic principle of criminal law that a charge must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt for conviction to follow.
To read on, click here.
-
Singapore1 week ago
Purported resignation message from Li Hongyi as Singpass director goes viral; GovTech yet to confirm authenticity
-
Community5 days ago
PAP MP Edward Chia: ‘Sanctions on Israel do not work’ when confronted by Holland-Bukit Timah resident
-
Singapore7 days ago
Lee Hsien Yang alleges rising repression and corruption in Singapore; government calls claims a ‘personal vendetta
-
Comments2 weeks ago
8World News anchor Zhang Haijie faces criticism for labelling Lee Hsien Yang as ‘unfilial son’
-
Politics2 weeks ago
Singapore govt accuses Lee Hsien Yang of creating ‘false urgency’ over 38 Oxley Road demolition
-
Opinion1 week ago
Where does Lee Hsien Loong stand on the future of 38 Oxley Road as the government revisits the issue?
-
Opinion2 weeks ago
Where is the iron in Lawrence Wong? Hiding from direct response to Lee Hsien Yang?
-
Politics1 week ago
Charles Yeo claims Singapore is seeking his extradition from UK; AGC remains silent