4/03/2008

Be there for the common man.

New Law Society head wants lawyers to help S'poreans know their rights Michael Hwang, the new Law Society Head wants to help Singaporeans to know their rights as a citizen. He said when a civil servant tells a citizen that he has no right to certain things, ask him if he is acting within the law. He also lamented that even lawyers must know what these rights are and not to accept every direction or decision that comes with a govt letter head. This part is a bit strange. If the learned lawyers are not too sure of what are the rights of the citizens, how to expect citizens to know their rights? Would Michael Hwang want to answer whether all the compulsory retention and designations of CPF money towards compulsory insurance schemes violate the rights of a citizen to ownership of his own properties? Be there for the common man.

2 comments:

Ⓜatilah $ingapura⚠️ said...

This is a fundamental problem with the Westminster system of parliamentary representative govt. — the parliament gets to tell you what your rights are, and they can vote all your rights away for any reason they give — e.g. the ISA is a piece of legislation to remove a great deal of your rights, and you can be detained indefinitely under the ISA.

The American rebels threw out their British rulers and the Westminster system with it, and the founding Fathers adopted a more "Greek system" of representative, republican govt.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

they also threw out the natives and brought in foreign talents from africa, like michael jordan, michael jackson, barack obama....