Pastor questions jail term for false information
By Ashley Chia, TODAY | Posted: 24 August 2012 0604 hrs
SINGAPORE: The lawyer of a church pastor, who was sentenced to two weeks in jail for giving false information under the Customs Act, on Thursday questioned if a "blanket sentence" had been imposed "mechanically and religiously".
In the appeal against the sentence, lawyer Peter Ong said Senior District Judge See Kee Oon had "failed to consider" that he had the discretion to impose a fine, instead of a custodial sentence.
The judge had imposed a jail term on Steven Yang Suan Piau, a pastor at Eternal Life Baptist Church, after he lied to an immigration officer.
On Jan 3, Yang had attempted to leave Singapore for Malaysia without the required amount of fuel, or at least three-quarters of the tank, in his car.
When asked by the immigration officer, Yang maintained that his car's fuel indicator - which showed it was three-quarters full - was accurate and that the fuel gauge had not been tampered with.
However, an inspection of the car found it had less than one-quarter tank of fuel.
On Thursday, Mr Ong questioned if the Senior District Judge had placed previous sentencing precedents "on an altar and obsessively worshipped them".
In 64 of the 67 cases between 2009 and May this year, jail terms of at least one to two weeks were imposed.
Two other cases attracted fines, while the last was taken into consideration during sentencing for other offences, Mr Ong noted.
The penalty for giving false information under the Customs Act is a fine of up to S$5,000 or jail term of up to a year, or both, and Mr Ong argued Parliament did not prescribe a minimum sentence for the offence and had left it to the discretion of the courts.
The lawyer also drew similarities to the recent case of Woffles Wu, who was fined S$1,000 for giving false information to the police about his speeding offences.
In both cases, the false information given was to evade a small speeding fine or a "small amount of excise duty on petrol", said Mr Ong.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sarah Lam, however, said Yang's sentence was adequate as he had deliberately misled the immigration officer.
The appeal was adjourned to a further date. - TODAY
