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Rule of Law
Law and order provide the framework for stability and development. Trained in
the law, I had imbibed the principle of equality of all before the law for the
proper functioning of a society. However, my experience of life in Japanese-
occupied Singapore, followed by a disorderly period when the British Military
Administration tried to reestablish the rule of law, made me pragmatic, not
ideological, in my approach to problems of crime and punishment.
After being called to the Singapore Bar in 1951, my first case was to defend
four rioters charged with the murder of an RAF sergeant during the “jungle girl”
Muslim riots against whites in December 1950. I got all four men acquitted, but
it left me with grave doubts about the practical value of the jury system for
Singapore. Seven men, deciding by majority verdict, made for easy acquittals.
The jury system had also been tried in India, failed and was abolished.
Soon after I became prime minister in 1959, I abolished the jury system for
all cases except murder. I retained this exception to keep in line with the law in
Malaya at that time. In 1969, after separation from Malaysia, I asked Eddie
Barker as minister for law to move a bill in Parliament abolishing the jury
system for murder trials. During a parliamentary select committee meeting,
David Marshall, then our most successful criminal lawyer, claimed he had 99
acquittals out of the 100 cases he defended for murder. When I asked if he
believed the 99 acquitted had been wrongly charged, Marshall replied his duty
was to defend them, not judge them.
A
Straits Times
court reporter who had watched many jury trials gave
evidence to the same select committee that superstitious beliefs and a general
reluctance to take responsibility for severe punishment, especially the death
sentence, made Asian jurors most reluctant to convict. They preferred acquittal
or conviction on a lesser charge. The reporter said he could predict that
whenever a pregnant woman was a member of the jury there would be no
conviction on a murder charge, for otherwise her child would be born cursed.
After the bill was passed and jury trials were abolished, there were fewer
miscarriages of justice arising from the vagaries of jury sentiments.
After what I had seen of human conduct in the years of deprivation and
harshness of Japanese occupation, I did not accept the theory that a criminal is a
victim of society. Punishment then was so severe that even in 1944–45, when
many did not have enough to eat, there were no burglaries and people could
leave their front doors on latch, day or night. The deterrent was effective. The
British used to have whipping with a cat-o’-nine-tails or rattan in Singapore.
After the war, they abolished whipping but retained caning (with rattan). We
found caning more effective than long prison terms and imposed it for crimes
related to drugs, arms trafficking, rape, illegal entry into Singapore and
vandalising of public property.
In 1993 a 15-year-old American schoolboy, Michael Fay, and his friends
went on a spree, vandalising road and traffic signs and spray-painting more than
20 cars. When charged in court, he pleaded guilty and his lawyer made a plea for
leniency. The judge ordered six strokes of the cane and four months in jail. The
American media went berserk at the prospect of an American boy being caned
on his buttocks by cruel Asians in Singapore. They raised so much heat that US
President Clinton appealed to President Ong Teng Cheong to pardon the
teenager. Singapore was placed in an impossible position. If we did not cane this
boy because he was American, how could we cane our own offenders? After
discussion in cabinet, the prime minister advised President Ong to reduce the
sentence to four strokes.
The American media was not satisfied. However, not all Americans
disapproved of Singapore’s punishment for vandalism. While driving in New
Hampshire soon after the Michael Fay story hit the headlines, my daughter Ling
was arrested for not stopping when a police car flashed its blue light at her for
speeding. The police officer was taking her to the police lockup when she said in
reply to his questioning that she came from Singapore and that he probably
disapproved of her country because of the Fay case. He said the boy deserved
the caning, drove her back to her car, and wished her good luck.
Fay survived the four strokes and returned to America. A few months later
the American press reported that he came home late and intoxicated one night
and charged at his father, bringing him down in a scuffle. A month later he was
badly burnt sniffing butane when a friend struck a match. He admitted that he
had been a butane addict while in Singapore.
These measures have made for law and order in Singapore. Singapore was
rated No. 1 by the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report
1997, as a country where “organised crime does not impose significant costs on
businesses”. The International Institute for Management Development in their
World Competitiveness Yearbook 1997 also rated Singapore No. 1 for security,
“where there is full confidence among people that their person and property is
[sic] protected”.
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