Philip Jeyaretnam: Following Dad’s footsteps?

WSJ deputy editor fined $10,000
Friday • March 20, 2009
Leong Wee Keat
weekeat@mediacorp.com.sg

AS A features editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, she was fined $4,000 for contempt of court in 1985.

Twenty-four years on, Ms Melanie Kirkpatrick — now a deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page — was fined $10,000 yesterday after she was found guilty of the same offence again.

Ms Kirkpatrick took editorial responsibility for three articles published in The Wall Street Journal Asia (WSJ Asia) between June 26and July 15 last year.

Last November, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones Publishing Company (Asia), was found to be guilty of contempt of court and was ordered to pay a $25,000 fine.

At yesterday’s hearing, Ms Kirkpatrick did not contest against the High Court’s application of the meanings accorded to the three articles. Principal Senior State Counsel David Chong, who represented the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), argued that Ms Kirkpatrick was a repeat offender who played “a significant part” in last year’s contempt case.

But Ms Kirkpatrick’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Philip Jeyaretnam, argued that his client “had no intention or desire to undermine any institution in Singapore, including the Singapore judiciary and its individual judges”.

Senior Counsel Chong countered that Ms Kirkpatrick “has not apologised nor stated explicitly that she accepts that the courts of Singapore apply the law of Singapore without fear or favour”. She should be fined $25,000, he argued.

While he noted that she did not offer an apology, Justice Tay Yong Kwang said there were two differences between Ms Kirkpatrick and Dow Jones Publishing Company cases: First, she was a second-time offender while the publisher was a third-time offender. Second, she did not contest the articles were in contempt of court, unlike the publisher.

Ms Kirkpatrick, who is now based at the Journal’s head office in New York, was also ordered to pay $10,000 for legal costs.

Mr Chong informed the Court that the AGC would discontinue contempt proceedings against two other WSJA’s Hong Kong-based editors, Mr Daniel Hertzberg and Ms Christine Glancey.

PAP suing WSJ for contempt of court and other assorted crimes is old hat. What caught my eye was that Philip Jeyaretnam was the lawyer for WSJ. Forgive my ignorance but this is the first time I’ve ever read about Philip fight a legal case of this sort.

Until recently, Philip was the president of the Singapore Law Society until stepping down honourably. Thus far he has never been embroiled in his father’s (the late JB Jeyaretnam) affairs and kept his dad’s political affairs at arm’s length.

Going up against the AGC is a bold move. Is this a step in his dad’s footsteps? We shall see, but I’m definitely keeping watch with interest.

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

Hearts and minds gerrymandering and the opposition

The consensus on the ground is that there was hardly any change to the electoral boundaries and thus the PAP could not be accused of election gerrymandering. IMHO there was, tho not so clearly on the electoral boundaries.

Looking closely at the changes it’s quite clear on the surface that not much was done to change the electoral boundaries. The two big changes were the removal of Drs Wong’s and Tan’s wards (to be consumed by GRCs) and the creation of 2 new wards to replace the “lost” SMCs.

Now that the media dust has settled it’s alot easier to peek at the manoeuvres mades by the PAP. The first thought that crossed my mind was how the consensus was reached that not much was changed. Haven’t the people forgotten that the big changes were made in 2001, that’s why nothing much needed to be done this round? It’s like being slapped a million times; the millionth and one slap, really is nothing much eh? In one of PAPs ad nauseum adages, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

The Holland-Bukit Panjang electoral map drawn by ST drew an incredulous grin on my face. The first image that popped in my head was “Israel surrounded by Arabs”. SMCs can draw from the firepower of the GRC eh? Truly… Maybe it’s not new that candidates seek help from other constituencies, but I’d appreciate it if you kept it subtle.

PM Lee “threw the gauntlet” at the opposition to contest all 84 seats. This remark drew an incredulous guffaw! In one fell stroke the PAP made the populace believe that not being able to vote was the opposition’s fault! Hey, if you can’t vote, it’s the opposition’s fault for not fielding enough competent candidates!

The fact that the populace has swallowed all the stories wholesale, shows that the PAP has truly succeeded in gerrymandering the hearts and minds of the people (well, 70% at least). With that, they could “lie, cheat and steal” all they want and they’d still win.

Ok, enough PAP-bashing. Now the opposition party. The news of UncleYap being booted was tres hilarious. Guys, the meeting of parties to mutually agree on avoiding 3-way fights is a good start, but really, if you had the people’s good at heart, then get off your asses and start thinking about forming a single opposition party, for fracks sake!

If you’re willing to sit down and talk about avoiding 3-way fights, and deferring to the “seniors”, why not form a single party? Is it for the sake of power? Everyone wants to be leader eh? I say, form a single party, call for party elections to vote in the key people (Chiam for chairman!) and contest the elections properly! If not, the opposition party will forever remain perfunctory and a sideshow to PAP’s circus.

http://www.newsintercom.org/index.php?itemid=414