Justice in Singapore

* Your article “Singapore: What Price Justice?” (April 2) has certain factual errors and omissions. These are:

In referring to the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act, which empowers the authorities to detain secret society members and criminals like drug traffickers, your article states that “the accused is not allowed to present a defense.” This is incorrect. Your reporter was informed during an interview with Singapore officials on March 28 that the accused person “can also be represented by counsel.”

The article went on to say that “one man has spent 13 years and 9 months in detention for gang activity.” It omitted the fact that he was being held for several cases of firearm robbery and murder in connection with his gang activity.

On an accused person’s right to counsel, your article states that this is “limited to those who can afford a lawyer, as the state does not provide lawyers to the poor.” This statement does not accurately convey the whole picture. For all capital cases, the state provides two defense lawyers to any accused person who cannot afford his own counsel, or who so chooses to be represented by state-assigned counsel. For most other non-capital cases, low-income earners can seek legal aid through a scheme provided by the Law Society. In short, the poor are not abandoned to fend for themselves.

You also cited the case where the chief justice, on hearing the appeal of an “educationally subnormal” Singaporean convicted of molesting a woman in a lift, increased a lower court’s six months’ sentence to include three strokes of the cane as well. But you failed to mention that the chief justice subsequently remitted the caning sentence after the head of the prison medical unit certified the man to be “not in a fit state of health” to undergo caning. In his ruling, the chief justice also cited medical authority to conclude that the man could not be considered educationally subnormal.

S. B. BALACHANDRER

Senior Information Officer

Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore