Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) executive director Zaid Malek has accused the Singapore government of engineering hurdles for those wanting to assist death row inmates in the republic.
He claimed that lawyers in Singapore are intimidated from representing or providing consultation to those slated for execution, making it difficult for these prisoners to obtain legal assistance.
“From what I heard from my colleagues there, it seems like the Singapore government is getting more proactive, at least in terms of trying and wielding whatever laws they have and creating new laws to stop the applications from going through or to stop assistance both internally and externally,” he said last night.
He was speaking at the Cross-Border Defence for Persons on Death Row in the Asia Pacific panel organised by the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, LFL, the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights, and Monash University.
The event was held in conjunction with World Day Against the Death Penalty, which fell on Oct 10.
This comes after the execution of Malaysian death row inmate Pannir Selvam Pranthanam in Singapore on Oct 8 for smuggling drugs into the republic.
At the same event, Australian lawyer Lex Lasry described the Singapore government as being “enthusiastic” about the death penalty.
“It is just grotesque, frankly,” he said.
The panel also discussed the rarity of the Singapore president granting clemency to those on death row.
“In most systems, a great number of people are given clemency.
“Unfortunately, in Singapore, that’s virtually nobody,” United Kingdom lawyer Edward Fitzgerald commented.
The presidential clemency has been granted only seven times since 1965.
An unpopular cause
Both Lasry and Fitzgerald spoke on the difficulty they experienced in their applications to represent death row inmates in Singapore.
“The Singapore Supreme Court and indeed the Singapore government, more particularly, have no interest in having senior foreign counsel coming to court and getting to their feet and telling them what’s wrong with their system, and in particular, telling them what’s wrong with the death penalty,” Lasry opined.
He expressed his belief that local lawyers are less likely to make those arguments.
Based on what he had heard of Singapore’s recent executions, he said not much has changed since his client, Australian citizen Van Nguyen, was executed in the republic in December 2005.
He spoke further on the political popularity of the death penalty in Singapore, saying that about 70 percent of the republic’s citizens approve of capital punishment.
“And if you are a controlling political party, then why would you not embrace it?
“So our cause is not particularly popular, as I understand, amongst Singaporeans, and I think that’s an obstacle we have to deal with,” he added.
According to a report from Channel News Asia last year, a survey by Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry found that 77.4 percent of residents either strongly agreed or agreed with retaining the death penalty for serious offences such as murder and trafficking substantial amounts of drugs.
Besides that, Lasry proposed organising an international conference on the death penalty in Singapore.
“And (we should) invite the Singapore government to come to the conference and justify the death penalty and the mandatory nature of the death penalty.
“I’m happy to go to Singapore and participate,” he said.
He explained that a public exposure of arguments in favour of the death penalty would be useful. - Mkini
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