Yong Vui Kong loses appeal - It's up to the politicians now

Yong Vui Kong’s appeal was denied as Singapore’s highest judicial authority, the Court of Appeal, declared the mandatory death penalty is constitutional. I have earlier written about the harshness of the mandatory death penalty here. I really hope that the judiciary, the government and the law fraternity won’t stop at this juncture in terms of reviewing the mandatory death penalty. The burden of judicial discretion or mitigation should not only be borne by the narcotics officers and public prosecutors but also be shared by the judges, who btw are the highest legal authority on this land.

On 14th May 10, “in a landmark ruling, Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong reaffirmed the line of decisions passed in Ong Ah Chuan and Nguyen. He ruled that Article 9 (1) of the Singapore Constitution, which establishes that ‘no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty save in accordance with law’, neither precluded ‘inhuman punishment’ nor did it embrace customary international law that prohibits the mandatory death penalty…Furthermore, he noted the lack of an explicit prohibition against inhuman punishment in the Singapore Constitution.”

Interesting, “the court also did not find applicable the Indian Supreme Court ruling that declared the mandatory death penalty inconsistent with their constitutional equivalent of Article 9 (1). CJ Chan found that to accept the Indian standard of a ‘fair, just and reasonable procedure’ would require judicial interpretation of the scope of ‘reasonable’ – thus potentially leading to a conflict with Parliament.”

With that I would think that CJ has put the ball into the politicians’ court or by saying that he meant that since Justices are appointed by the government of the day they should somewhat abide by their political view? In any event, it’s similar to what I have already said earlier that hope on the judges to rule in a controversial manner is mostly bleak – change has to come from the politicians.

Lastly, CJ sort drew down the curtain on the court’s role in the debate of the mandatory death penalty when he “observed that Yong’s appeal have had mustered the most substantive constitutional arguments against the mandatory death penalty. As such, the rejection of this appeal would mean that ‘under Singapore law as it stands, further challenges in court [against the mandatory death penalty] have been foreclosed.’”

A depressively sad reflective day.