Singapore has just scored another “Victory” in the war on drugs. Early today, we executed Mr. Tangaraju, a Singaporean who was sentenced to death in 2018. Much is being said on both sides of the debate and so I shall refrain from trying to add anything that the more intelligent and passionate have already said. I will however, make the point that it was rather ironic that we chose to execute a man so soon after the sentencing of Karl Liew for lying in court during the Parti Liyani case.
If you leave the argument on the effectiveness of the
death penalty as a deterrent for drug use to one side, the biggest argument
that proponents have for the death penalty is that, its very clear. The Singapore
government makes it a point to let everyone in and coming to Singapore know
that the penalty for having drugs on your possession is death. You can argue “extenuating
circumstances” till the cows come home but if the fact of the matter is that
you were found to have drugs of any sort on your possession, the only thing that
will save you is the rope breaking three times. Anyone who has a brain cell or
two knows the risk of carrying drugs within Singapore and I guess you could say
that if you get caught with drugs, then you deserve what you get.
However, there is one major flaw with that argument.
It’s based on the assumption that the system is infallible and always right. If you work on the principle that the “State”
catches the right guy all the time and then proves its beyond a shadow of doubt
all the time, then I suppose that there should never be a problem. If anything,
the people who believe in the death penalty will inevitably tell you that the
guys who get caught are either caught red handed or confess. So, what’s the
problem?
Well, as was shown in the Parti Liyani case, the “State”
does make mistakes. The things that nobody imagined actually happened. The facts
were clear in this case. The police investigation was sloppy. Evidence against
Ms. Liyani was flimsy and a supposedly credible witness lied both to the
investigating officer and under oath in trial. Then, there’s the fact that Ms.
Liyani belongs to what you call, the less educated or at least the group that
gets frightened easily by authority figures like policemen and so you got the
inconsistencies in her statement to the police that our unconflicted law and
home affairs minister was so quick to point to. Despite the obviously sloppy
investigation and Mr. Karl Liew being exposed on the stand in the first trial,
Ms. Liyani was sentenced to jail and lost four (4) years of her life.
Now, you could argue that Ms. Liyani was a “freak,” and
that the Singapore Police Force (SPF) is right most of the time. However, the
fact remains, the police are clearly capable of making mistakes and “credible”
people are capable of lying on stand and its very clear that “innocent” people do
get punished for crimes they did not commit because powerful forces were
against them.
Then let’s not forget that Ms. Liyani’s case is a “freak”
not because it was an oddity that the SPF made a mistake in its investigation
or that a “credible” person lied on the stand. Her case is a “freak” because
she had a lawyer who was willing to fight for her for no material reward and
more importantly, she had a judge who could cut through the chase and made
rulings based on solid facts presented in court (Namely realizing that Mr. Karl
Liew’s testimony in court was not credible despite the fact that he is the son
of a powerful corporate figure.)
Let’s remember that policemen and judges are humans
and prone to human errors like throwing the book at “convenient targets,” like
Ms. Liyani and most of the guys on death row. This isn’t unique to Singapore.
In the US, you had the case of the Central Park Five, where five black and Latino
teenagers were convicted of raping a white woman in 1989. The case stirred
emotions, so much so that a then real estate tycoon decided to take an ad out
in the papers calling for their execution. The police got confessions. They
were convicted at trial in 1990 and nearly a decade later, the actual criminal
was discovered in 2001.
Human errors exist and innocent people do get
punished. In a world where the legal system is increasingly expensive, you will
find that “convenient” targets will even go as far as to admitting to crimes
they didn’t commit because they can’t afford to fight the system that they
believe is against them. We have to accept that mistakes do get made and when
people are wrongly convicted, they should be compensated (which would admittedly
never quite compensate for years of their life lost). However, you have to ask yourself
– how do you make restitution to someone that you have killed?
So, if you want the death penalty, you also need to
look at making sure that the system is never wrong. You need to fix the system
in such a way that human error and human weaknesses will never send the wrong
people to the gallows. It is, as they say, pretty hard to say sorry to a corpse
if mistakes are made
2 comments
Well written Tang Li. As you mentioned, the state can only take the life of someone only if it (the state) has a "perfect/flawless justice system"
It's not a victory but a sad moment for the country to see its citizen taking such LAW likely and getting everyone hurt...This is not a game for anyone to celebrate victory or lost...its totally a lost for the county to lose a citizen life in such situation but the LAW is the core for Singapore's life line.
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