The Injustice of Justice

A man cons a woman of her life savings of S$124,000, and squanders it all on horses. He gets jailed for nearly 4 years. Justice served? Indeed, although both end up the loser.

A woman cons her colleagues of nearly S$1 million and gets nearly 6 years’ jail. Justice served? Perhaps. Recompense?

But in a lawsuit where our courts are actually trying to convict a man of cheating a nation of $12 million? They haggle over a measly S$20,000 invoice. Justice?

When Dr Chee Soon Juan appeals his verdict, the appeals judge is the exact same judge who passed the earlier sentence. Justice?

In the last one, one could easily consider that a travesty of the judicial process; not that it bothers me that much: CSJ is going down, there are many ways to skin a cat, but it creates a precedence in the judicial process that opens the floodgates for more “illegal proceedings”.

Why does our courts continue to haggle over a S$20,000 invoice in TT Durai’s case? Why hasn’t the courts addressed the bigger issue, that of wanton spending and missing millions, millions generously donated by the populace for charitable deeds but ending up filling the pockets of a few (Durai, Richard, Matilda, et al)? Why weren’t bail amounts set higher? Why were they allowed to travel? Why were they allowed to liquidate? That powerful lawyers who can command huge 6-7 figure fees can miss slapping a court order on them to prevent them from selling their assets, boggles my mind. To think that our courts could act so fast against the likes of Tang Liang Hong in 1997 yet so laggardly here astounds me.

Why have the previous sentences against the fodder presented to the courts been so light? One could speculate that the courts realise that they are mere fodder offered for the slaughter, but perhaps in light of the light-handed approach against the heads of the Hydra, perhaps the rot goes deeper; delving any deeper would inadvertently expose the Hera behind the scenes?

While I’m not one to advocate mob justice, it’s clear that the general public, the mollycoddled 66.6%, are braying for a criminal sentence befitting the magnitude of the crime. Dereliction of duty, fraud, perjury. Serious offenses. Will the voted appease the voters? We’ll see.

Is Justice to be served?

http://www.newsintercom.org/index.php?itemid=532

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam

The biggest breaking news in the local political scene is that of JB Jeyaretnam being cleared of bankruptcy and announcing that he will plan to start a new Reform Party and possibly stand for elections.

As someone who never had the privilege of seeing JBJ contesting anything, I regarded him as a curiosity or even a anachronism of the Singaporean political scene.

For me, as a relative youngblood of Singapore, JBJ’s main claims fames are two-fold, that he fought a protracted war against our local PAP big guns to free himself of bankruptcy, and that he lost his bid to stand office in the 1997 GE, one where he claimed that the Cheng San polls were rigged by LKY himself to keep JBJ out of office.

Out of curiosity, I met JBJ in City Hall and had a short chat with the man about his ambitions and life long struggle with bankruptcy and why he was doing what he was doing, which IMHO was tantamount to banging his head against an ungrateful wall. I remember him saying these words:

“I fight because Singaporeans deserve rights, Singapore deserves more than the authoritative rights the PAP government has given you (me). Under the PAP’s regime, Singaporeans have forgotten what it means to have rights and have forgotten how to fight for these rights. I fight to remind them.”

Braver words were never spoken. I bought his book.

Years later he’s free of bankruptcy and I watched with interest his videos announcing his plan to build a Reform Party and possibly stand for elections. However, watching the video, I began to wonder. Frankly the videos do not cast him in a bright light. His thoughts were muddled, at times incoherent, at times trains of thought intermittent and turgid. I think the ravages of age have taken a toll on the man. He’s 81 and come 2011, he’ll be 85. By then as now, he’ll be reduced to a mere mascot.

Will he get the permission to form the Reform Party? I doubt that. Will be be able to rally enough supporters to help him form the party? With Worker’s Party the real alternative choice for aspiring alternative political paths, I doubt that. Even if he does, what are the issues he’ll stand for? Freedom of speech? Democracy? Sounds more like CSJ.

I will not vote for him.

http://www.newsintercom.org/index.php?itemid=531

The Power of The Internet

The Internet is fast changing how politicians and citizens engage each other in the political and social arenas. With the godsend that is community sharing sites like YouTube, MetaCafe and WikiPedia, citizens have gotten increasingly involved and bold in their attempts to voice out and engage.

The incumbent powers that be are only slowly catching up to this game.

To wit, check out these vids by sgpolitic (thanks for the email!):

There are four by sgpolitic, which you can view here. Truly a few pictures speaks millions of words. “DIssension” within indeed. With a few cursory skills, these days any pundit can chime in their 2 bytes worth to an audience of millions far quicker and more effectively than Speakers Corner ever can.

The incumbent powers are slowly but surely catching on, from the PAP cyber-agents trawling the Net to allegations of MICA agents sniffing around and policing the general populace, it is clear that they aren’t stupid; just not that smart. Why? The way I see it, in every arena of play, be it movies, politics, the workplace, even the neighbourhood playground, there is that one constant struggle, the struggle for power.

I’ve been recently reading up on issues on terrorism and there appears to be a rift forming between the radical fighters in Iraq. Does the struggle justify slaughter of ordinary Muslims? This basic question of killing your own is creating a rift between those who think it’s ok and those who think it’s not. Figureheads will make mission statements and manifestos, but ultimately once you cut throw the vitriol, it boils down to a struggle for power, the (moral) right to lead.

We are also seeing this happening in the blogosphere, with centres of power forming here and there, examples include SingaporeAngle, IntelligentSingaporean, Tomorrow.Sg, TheVoidDeck, et al, and the various larger than life figures who stake their claims in these centres of power. Invariably, the constant rears its ugly head. The struggle for power, in the subconscious need to assert that their moralistic(?), intellectual or scholastic arguments hold true over others, the struggle for power muddles their intellectual-aristocratic minds. This is happening already, you just need to browse around.

In any struggle there will be casualties. Very soon we’ll see blogs and writers shutting down and calling it quits or cooling off. Like a flaming plasma vortex, these things tend to fizzle out. If I were the incumbent, I would just sit back, enjoy the show, and keep the train chugging along. If I can throw in a few logs to stoke the flame, why not.

You might argue that the Internet is a force to be reckoned with and anyone saying otherwise is gentrified, old-fashioned, passe, behind the times and dangerously about to be out-evolved. However, the way I see it, the only simple question that needs to be asked and answered is: Would you vote a cyber-politician into office?

http://www.newsintercom.org/index.php?itemid=530