Mr. Benyamin
Thank you for drawing my attention to my imprecise use of the word "murder". I apologise for this. The Van Nguyen execution by the Singapore government was indeed in accordance with the law, and as I have already pointed out in my earlier post, that law is in accordance with the wishes of most of the citizens of Singapore. However, mandatory death penalties are not consistent with international law, which tends to reflect the attitudes and values of the majority of people in the world. By the existence of a mandatory death penalty in the Singapore legal code, Singapore has placed itself outside the world community.
In respect of the concept of "justice".
The English language carries varying shades of meaning in different places. Your reference has provided a meaning which could perhaps be taken to be acceptable in the USA. In Britain, a more acceptable meaning would be that given by Oxford, which in the context of the present discussion is "the quality of being fair and reasonable".It is a basic principle of democracy that there be separation between the political administration of a society and the judiciary. When the political arm introduces mandatory sentencing it over rides the judiciary and destroys one of the basic principles of democracy. Singapore purports to be a democracy, but the way in which successive Singaporean governments have interpreted the concept of "democracy" leave this open to question.
In law statistical evidence can be admitted as testimony. In many professional fields statistical evidence is used to provide an indication of probability. Statistical evidence does much more than infer that something is so, it provides a foundation for the calculation of the probability of something in fact being so.
In the context in which I used "statistical evidence", there are already more than sufficient proven cases of wrongful conviction of persons who would have been executed had it not been for new evidence coming to light. In recent years this new evidence has been provided by DNA, but even before DNA testing began to be employed, it was acknowledged within the judiciary that not all persons convicted of capital crimes were indeed guilty. The point is this:- people have been executed who did not commit the crime for which they were executed. This is fact.
During the 1970`s President Nixon began to escalate his war on drugs to attempt to prevent heroin coming home with the returning soldiers from Vietnam.
In 1975 Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia imposed the death penalty on drug smugglers.I can state with certainty that the actions of these countries was a direct result of diplomatic pressure applied on these countries by the USA. You may accept this or not, as you wish, but it is fact. At the same time we were pressuring Australia and other countries to toughen their stance on drugs, however not all these other countries saw fit to introduce the death penalty for drug related offences.The countries that did introduce the death penalty for drug related offences were notable because of the similarity of their governments:- all were undemocratic states in which the death penalty was already in common use.Most of these countries were Islamic, and puritan Islam was on the rise. Other countries to follow the lead of the South East Asian countries were Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran, as well as some states in North Africa.
Singapore`s stance was to a large extent the result of the personal philosophy of Lee Kwan Yew.Lee had destroyed trade unionism in Singapore, abolished habeas corpus, and the Singapore judiciary were hand picked and acted at his direction.During the 1970`s the Singapore police would often forcibly cut the hair of male tourists if their hair was below the height of their collar. A little later, chewing gum was made illegal.Campaigns were run to get rid of homosexuals, prostitutes, drunks. The campaign against drugs was targetted principally at the indigenous Malays, however in practice it affected all levels of Singapore society.Singapore`s mandatory sentence of death for some drug related offences may well be an expression of the will of the citizens of Singapore, and an expression of the philosophy of the Singapore government, however the world today is a global village and Singapore`s present stance is out of step with the international laws that this global village has decided best express the global philosophy.
Let me make it clear that I do not oppose the death penalty where the citizens of a country deem that such a penalty is fitting punishment for a crime. I personally am opposed to the death penalty, but I am not opposed to the democratic right of the citizens of any country to decide that they want the death penalty.
However, I most definitely cannot agree with the government of any country enacting laws which provide for a mandatory death sentence, thereby destroying the separation between government and judiciary which is so necessary to the functioning of a democratic state.
