Can Singapore rely on Self Check to protect the rights of its citizens?

‘Detention of match fixing kingpin ‘unlawful’’ This is the headline in the media on 26 Nov. The release of Dan Tan after being detained for 24 months without trial under the Criminal Law(Temporary Provisions) Act(CL/TPA) has very serious implications to the enforcement of law and order in the city state and question the rationale of ‘Self Check’ as the best check on the system. The Court of Appeal headed by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Appeal Judges Chao Hick tin and Andrew Phang Boon Leong ruled that Dan Tan’s detention under the CL/TPA was unlawful.  This means that the Law Minister that invoked this law was wrong and a citizen was detained unlawfully for two years.  The first thought coming to mind, can Dan Tan seek redress and compensation against the Minister or the govt?

Dan Tan’s detention was debated in Parliament, a kind of self check in the system to ensure that the law is enforced fairly and equitably and lawfully. And for it to go to Parliament, many legal minds and experts in MOH must have gone through the law with due diligence and found it right and lawful to detain Dan Tan. And Parliament, a few questions, allowed it to pass.

If this Dan Tan did not have the money and the able lawyers to defend him, he would still be locked up without trial, on the ground of threatening public safety, peace and order in Singapore. The CL/TPA was to protect the country against hard core criminals from harming the people and law and order. What did Dan Tan do to be feared like hard core criminals? He was a bookie, a big time international bookie fixing football matches. And that was seen by the people in authority as very dangerous and threatening public safety, peace and order in Singapore. And the Minister thought so, his ministry thought so and Parliament, the whole lot of MPs and ministers also thought so.

Now the Court of Appeal said NO!. It is unlawful. And some people are worried that this decision will compromise peace, good order of Singapore. This means that this loosely written law can be subjected to all kinds of interpretation depending on the person’s psychological make up, his values and beliefs and wha the person thinks is a danger to peace and good order, and a bookie or gambler is also that dangerous.  What is astounding is that so many brilliant, clever, super talented people, MPs elected by the people to sit in Parliament, in this case, were all wrong and read the law wrongly. Is it frightening? And more frightening, they are afraid that because they were ruled to be wrong, it will compromise good order and peace, or that their decision should be upheld for good order and peace.

What about self check? Is this about self check? Is the system, the courts doing a self check on the system? Some would say yes, some would say not really. Some would now be questioning, how credible and reliable were those people that were given the trust and authority to apply the law and did it so badly resulting in a man being detained without trial for 2 years.

And so many people, clever people, thought the law was right and they were right to use the law on Dan Tan. Thank God, there is self check in the courts of law and there is wisdom to apply and uphold the law lawfully.

On hindsight, many wise men have also wisen up to say how could Dan Tan fall into the category of dangerous criminals that would affect public safety, peace and good order of Singapore? Would the Law Minister and MOH make an appeal against this judgement from the Court of Appeal and to rule that what they did to Dan Tan was lawful?

Would anyone be held accountable for applying the law so wrong?

Selling national icons

The Great Singapore Sale is on, but this one will take a longer time span as it involves real big ticket items. The PWD or Public Works Division was sold, power stations were sold, Robinson sold, Tiger Beer/F&N sold and the latest item under the hammer is iconic NOL, the national carrier of international fame and of big losses.

Richard Hartung, a foreign talent, wrote in the Today paper today asking ‘Why Spore should not sell off its iconic firms’. The reasons are obvious, there are things that are more valuable than just in monetary terms and should not be put up for sale using profit and loss rationale. There are national psychic involved, national pride, culture, aspiration and identity. What would Singapore be if they sell away DBS, SIA, the Istana, PSA, SMRT, SBS, HDB, the National Museum, National Arts Gallery, the universities like NUS, NTU etc etc? What the heck spending on foreigners to buy gold medals in sports for?

Richard Hartung also talked about the loss of core skills if a national shipping line would go and how it would affect the business of PSA. Would the new owner bypass PSA and make Malaysian ports their ports of call and head office? What about the core skills of shipping talents? Not important? Yes, not important. We already have lost our core skills in banking and finance and IT and would need 30 years to train our next generation of bankers, finance and IT experts if the govt is serious to pursue this line of thinking and not just paying lip services.

We even compromised our Total Defense Concept by bringing in foreigners in the millions and given important appointments in govt services and GLCs to foreigners called new citizens and some not even new citizens. We are at the verge of cleaning out our local academics in the academia by replacing them with foreigners. Would we be losing any core skills and talents?

And the NOL and SIA do not just play a commercial role for profit and loss. In times of war, they have supporting role to play for our military services as well. Are we really going all out on this Great Singapore Sale just counting dollars and cents? Are there other more important considerations to think about, strategic interests, the big picture, a nation versus a hotel?

All the kpkb in the social media will be of no use. Maybe what this Richard Hartung said may ring a bell, because he is a foreigner and foreigners are the smarter people in this Sin City. And in this case this foreigner also thinks this Great Singapore Sale of iconic assets is not a good idea.

What do you think?

Bomb threat protocol on SQ001

SQ001 arrived from San Francisco on Sunday with 267 passengers on board. The media reported that it was the target of a bomb threat and was held at the tarmac for more than an hour with all its passengers on board. It was a great relief that it was found to be a hoax and all the passengers were safe.

The incident is receiving a lot of brickbats from netizens saying that the protocol was flawed. Should it not be top priority to get the passengers out of the aircraft as the first instance when the aircraft landed instead of holding them inside the aircraft that is the subject of a bomb threat? It sounds very logical. And the procedure of keeping the passengers inside the aircraft looked so silly to many observers and commentators.

Maybe there are other reasons or information that the public did not know. What is the nature of the bomb threat? Normally it is like a bomb being planted in the plane. So getting the passengers out and away from the aircraft looks the most reasonable thing to do.

What would it be if the threat says do not open the door for doing so would trigger the bomb to go off? Ah, no one thought of this right? I think the security people are not that daft as the public thought them to be. Understand the nature of the threat first and then the measures taken would make sense. Some bombs are designed to  trigger off at certain heights, above or below or at certain speed like it will go off if the speed falls below say 300 knots.

Now what is this case all about? Who knows? Did the security people made a booboo by allowing the passengers to remain in a plane with a bomb threat or there is more than what we know?

The war in Syria going to blow up

The Turks down Russian SU24 fighter jet yesterday when both sides were supposed to be fighting the ISIS. Putin called this a stab in the back while the Turks are claiming that the Russian jet entered their territories.  Such silly behavior is very typical of some Asean countries, thinking they could pull the whiskers of a sleeping tiger. The Russians with Putin in charge would not let this event go unpunished. Turkey can expect a few bombs at their radar stations or airbases or a few F16s to be shot down by the Russians.

Turkey is behaving like little pesky countries thinking that with the US behind them they could go around shooting at anyone, including a nuclear power like Russia. There is no way they are going to get away with this silly act. The Russians are prepared to take on the Americas and Turkey is a push over.

This is a lesson that the Philippines and some Asean states must take note. Don’t try this silly trick on China. They will give them a blue black even if it risks the Americans joining the fray. There are things that silly pesky countries can do, there are things that they better not do.

The war in Syria will cross over to Turkey and the innocent people of Turkey will be the next war collateral. It is really baffling to think that leaders of a country could act in such a silly manner and think they could get away with it.

Well done Turkey, welcome to the war zone.

Tapping solar energy

Everyone is tapping solar energy. PUB is conducting a 9 month test to see its impact on the environment and reservoir. Solar panels need a lot of space and installing them means some space much go. Not a good way to use our limited space. We need more space for more foreigners to come in, 6.9m or 10m. So the reservoir with it wide expanse of water surface offers a perfect setting for solar panels. Really? Would it eat into the space of water activities?

Actually there is a lot of unused space that would not be put to use and when used for solar panels, no space will be wasted. In fact it is maximizing space that would be wasted anyway. Look at the new sound barrier panels SMRT are erecting on the side of tracks to cut down noise level. Why can’t they install solar panels instead, killing two birds with one stone? The panels could also act as sound barriers. And the long stretches of tracks can definitely take in a good number of panels without wasting any extra space.

If SMRT were to line all the tracks with solar panels, it may be able to turn it into another business, selling electricity with the surpluses or at least be self sufficient in energy consumption.

What do you think?