Break the Law - like your PAP Leaders

Break The Law – Like Your PAP Leaders

In 1997, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Deputy Prime Ministers Lee Hsien Loong and Tony Tan and PAP senior MP S Vasoo clearly and unambiguously broke the law. (See articles "Something for physicists to philosophers" and "Unauthorised persons inside polling stations")

As Attorney-General Chan Sek Keong's letter shows, he contorted logic, truth, meaning and law to find the accused 'not guilty' of the crime although they were clearly guilty.

There is nothing we can do about it. If the highest legal officer in the land refuses to prosecute the obviously guilty, we have no recourse. And the PAP and its ministers are guilty of not just this one crime but many others, for which no recourse to the law can be made, as long as the Attorney-General continues to abuse his position to let them 'get away with murder'.

I have thought about this over the years and come up blank. How can we get the State to prosecute if the AG refuses to?

The reasons for the non-prosecution are obvious.

If the AG prosecuted, as his sworn oath of office dictates, the accused 4 men would be charged and found guilty. Of this, there is no doubt. Even foreign newspapers have published photos of the guilty captured within the polling stations. So they are guilty as charged.

The only question would be the legal punishment and its subsequent political effect on the careers of the 4 men.

Since most of the punishments meted out by our judges are mandatory or have to conform closely to given guidelines, the fines and/or jail sentences would be enough to disqualify the 4 men from Parliament and barring them from contesting elections for the stipulated 5 years.

Wow! PM Goh exits from Parliament and cannot contest for 5 years. DPMs exit from Parliament and cannot contest for 5 years. MP Vasoo exit from Parliament and cannot contest for 5 years.

The effect would be the total exit from politics of the 4 men, since being away from the cabinet or Parliament for 5 years means that others would have taken their places and in the dog-eat-dog world of even PAP politics, the new incumbents would have consolidated their power so much during the 5 years that these 4 would never be able to make a political comeback. The country would have forgotten about them. Nobody would even think that they were indispensable because the truth is, nobody in the PAP is indispensable, not even Lee Kuan Yew.

Thus, the whole world knew that the 4 PAP men had broken the law but because the consequences were so unthinkable, the unthinkable was done, which was to pressure the AG to state that there was no case because, in his opinion, the 4 men had not broken the law. In doing so, he brought eternal shame on Singapore, its laws, its Government, the PAP, and of course, his office and himself.

That is history and generally, history does not interest me.

What can we do about the future?

Ah, there is something we can do.

We can use the future to revive the past, to make it ever present.

How?

By breaking the law.

From this coming General Election on, we can all break the same law that the 4 men had broken and gotten away with. In other words, if the good AG says that what they did was not illegal, then it follows as surely as day follows night that if we do the same thing every GE, we should also be found not guilty of any offence.

Thus, I would encourage all good Singaporeans who feel indignant about this breach of the law and the subsequent obstruction of justice to break the same law.

You can do this by deliberately entering the polling stations on Polling Day without a permit and challenging the police to arrest you. Do not resist arrest. Just get arrested.

Then, if you are charged in court, use as your defence the good AG's letter, which is in the link above. Print it out and present it as your absolute defence that no less a person than the AG, writing with the full authority of his office, has declared that what you did is not an offence. The judge will throw out the case and you will go down in history as a hero.

Now, seriously, I do not expect any true Singaporean to do that. Unfortunately the true Singaporean is a kiasu and kiasi. I know because I am one, too, like all Singaporeans.

So, the Opposition will have to perform this heroics, because frankly, no Singaporean will ever do it. That is the main reason why the few in the PAP have been able to grip the whole country in a vise-like stranglehold. It is the Singaporean's fear of standing out and being hit down, like a nail. Lie low and nothing will happen to you. If you see something bad happening to a fellow Singaporean, just avert your gaze and mutter, under your breath, "better you than me, mate".

So, for the Opposition, there is this opportunity. A chance to get your head bloodied in protest, so to speak, without actually having to suffer a bloody head. A chance to stand up to the PAP and test the law, like great men and women the world over have stood up to test their country's unjust laws.

Except that, in this case, there is little risk.

There is no way the police can prosecute you because if they did, the million dollar question is, why weren't the 4 PAP men, who started all this, prosecuted as well? And since the Statute of Limitations has not expired, the 4 PAP men can still be charged and prosecuted. So, why not?

Thus, from the coming GE onwards, all Oppositionists, especially the younger ones, should break the law and if possible, get arrested for doing so. Then open up the whole can of worms for the PAP by re-opening the whole case of why the 4 PAP men were not charged and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Let this become a great Singapore Opposition tradition. This symbolic breaking of the law. Let all Oppositionists do this and thus carry this 'badge of honour'. Just like Mr Jeyaretnam carries his jailing and bankruptcy as a badge of honour. Just as Dr Chee Soon Juan carries his jailing and unfair sacking from his University post as a badge of honour. Let it become an Opposition rite of passage.

Follow our PAP leaders on this one -- break the law.

Lawless