Singapore's shameful sham judiciary, Part 1

Singapore loves feeling superior to Malaysia in every way. They have plenty of things to boast about: better public transport, less corruption, higher standards of living, and so on. 

Here’s one simple question: is the Singapore judiciary any better than Malaysia’s?

That the Malaysian judiciary has had a tarnished reputation cannot be denied - the VK Lingam judge-fixing scandal, a history of sound judgements being overturned by judges promoted to the higher courts, and perhaps most blatant of all, the sodomy trials of Anwar Ibrahim. 

Singapore can boast of cleaner streets, but when it comes to the judiciary, theirs is the burning shame of being right down there in the gutter with Malaysia. Now, we have a sham trial of almost Anwar-like proportions to demonstrate it. 

A judiciary is far from clean when trials become a farcical mockery of justice, and political agendas and vendettas are the basis for trampling the very principles of due process. Even a first- year law student can recognise the blatant miscarriage of justice and meddling fingers of the government. 

The pride and arrogance of the Singapore government, borne of being in power for too long (just like the BN) has blinded it to a distinct reality of contemporary society. To paraphrase Buddha: three things cannot long remain hidden - the sun, the moon and the truth. 

They remain stuck in the past, where a nation’s perception of reality has been easy to manipulate by monopolising all print and broadcast media. 

Malaysia has led the way in showing that people will not stand for lies and evil deception any more. If Singapore thinks it can hold back this tide of truth, it will go the way of all those who refuse to accept progress and change. 

The case that has thrown the shameful failings of a core state institution into relief is that of Professor Tey Tsun Hang (left), who stands accused of accepting sexual favours and gifts from a student in exchange for better grades. 

Before we examine the details of the case, who is Tey?

He was born in Segamat, Johor, and went on to study law in King's College and Cambridge in the UK. He rose in the system to become a district judge in the Subordinate Court (equivalent of Malaysia's Sessions Court), and then moved to a career in academia. 

His academic work has been very critical of the Singapore government, also focusing in great detail on the failings of the judicial system and highlighting its shameful subservience to the overbearing powers of the Executive. 

Tey’s publications are well respected and have found a ready audience internationally, where it is harder to suppress the freedom of academic inquiry, and where ideas require true merit to become popular. 
    
Sex for grades? 

Of course, being a crusader for a clean judiciary does not automatically absolve an individual of criminal charges. The question then becomes whether it is true that Tey accepted favours in exchange for giving better grades.

In order to prove their case, the prosecution would have to prove that he had sexual relations with this student, accepted her gifts, and in turn gave her better grades than she deserved. 

The defence focused on disproving the last two of these accusations. 

Firstly, it relied on evidence in the form of cheques issued in payment of the gifts that were allegedly given by the student. These cheques proved that Tey had himself paid for the items in question. 

Secondly, it relied on detailed academic records audited by National University of Singapore (NUS) staff, which clearly indicate that the grades the student received from Tey were completely in accordance with the quality of her work, and were marked according to the exact same standard as that of other students in the class. 

These two pieces of evidence should have immediately cleared Tey of any corruption charges. If it can be proven that there were sexual relations between him and the student, then this would constitute a clear and shameful breach of ethics and professionalism.

It would then warrant internal discipline proceedings at the NUS level, without sufficient evidence or cause to institute criminal proceedings. 

What happened then in court, when the defence attempted to produce the vindicating evidence?

It was revealed that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) had seized evidence of cheque payment records which indicated Tey made payments for the supposed corrupt gifts. Yet, no investigation was pursued. 

It was observed that investigators who were questioned in court were evasive, and eventually had to admit that no action was taken to investigate such important evidence.

To salvage the lapse in CPIB investigations, the prosecution objected strongly to the Tey’s application for forensic ink-dating tests and handwriting comparison analysis of the cheque payment records.

This was a make-or-break point, because the test results would prove scientifically that the payment records were made by Tey three years ago in 2010, when the alleged crimes of corruption took place.  

The prosecution could not afford for the tests to be carried out, lest its theory be proven wrong on the spot and the case against Tey collapsed on itself.

Taking cue from the prosecution's strong objection, the judge refused Tey’s applications for forensic ink-dating and handwriting tests.  

With this victory in hand, the prosecution then turned around and proclaimed that there was no such payments, calling Tey a liar who had fabricated a story about making payments.  

Why did the judge refuse Tey's application for the scientific tests? If he was objective as a judge should be, he should have allowed the tests so that this critical evidence could finally be looked into, so that there is no miscarriage of justice.  

To seek guidance from the prosecution and then simply brush aside the critical evidence reflects very poorly on his judgment, and indicates a total lack of independence, as well as an intent to convict Tey right from the very beginning.

Evidence rejected

Early on during the trial, the lawyer representing NUS, whose interest was obviously to vindicate itself with a bulletproof grading system, stood up to state that the university was ready to cooperate with providing all the necessary academic records as soon as the court issues the appropriate orders.

The lawyer was instead slapped with an order from the judge not to speak any more in court until he was told to do so. 

Subsequently, the defence requests to compel NUS to provide those academic records were mostly disallowed by the judge or objected to by the prosecution, mainly on the grounds of student data confidentiality or completely silent without providing any ground of objection. 

It seemed that the judiciary is more interested to maintain data confidentiality for NUS than to uphold truth and justice. 

Furthermore, no less than six defence witnesses were censored by the judge. Worst of all, they were censored without providing grounds. 

Could there be a more blatant miscarriage of justice? Who were the six witnesses? Why were they censored? What was said that could not have been said in the open? Might this have impacted the trial? Did the censoring of the witnesses prejudice the defence?

Yesterday, the Singapore court found Tey guilty of all six corruption charges. Sentencing will be on June 3.