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Do laws in Singapore benefit nobody except lawyers?: Is the 'agency' criterion for se

bic_cherry

Alfrescian
Loyal
Do laws in Singapore benefit nobody except lawyers?: Is the 'agency' criterion for serious CBT total bull sh!t?

Did high court just imply that all CHC members and their pastor are just casual friends?
Here goes the current court logic. There are at least 2 forms of CBT, one is termed 'simple', the more serious is if one is an 'agent'(I.e. trusted professional (Dr, lawyer, accountant), public servant etc) when committing CBT.
I liken the former (less culpable) form to CBT between friends e.g. I pass John $20000 to safekeep because his wife is pretty and his children are cute but he squanders the $ on beer and on jackpot: this is simple CBT because in his conduct of the duty (safekeep my $$$), John possessed no special qualification not experience and we were casual friends to begin with with no formal professional/ commercial relationship/ agreement.

Shouldn't the quantum of the swindle be more important regardless of the relationship between swindler and victim? Of course the fact that the victim was either stupid or equally culpable could be taken into consideration in mitigation but I think that prioritising the 'agent' status over the quantum of $$$ swindled simply simply flies in the face of logic (if not placing the cart before the horse) especially when the quantum swindled is very big (like $50million etc).

Maybe the 'agent' classification was applicable like 500yrs ago when what was safe kept was some commodity with an indeterminate value(price) such that the 'agency' status of the swindler would be the only discernable fact (e.g. a friend borrowed a horse but the one returned was weaker and a bit old perhaps), but today, the value of goods/ $ misused can be more easily discerned.

Parliamentarians should get off their high horses and create more practicable laws to establish better justice in society rather than convoluted processes which benefit nobody but bloodthirsty lawyers and confuse everybody including the bench.

In the case of CHC (being a charity organisation by registration) that the relationship between pastor and flock is a mere casual/ happenstance one is furthest from truth.

PS: I am not a lawyer so I stand correct if the examples I have used are incorrect but I don't think my interpretation of the distinction between 'agent' or not (in current law) is incorrect.

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LAWYER EXPLAINS WHY CHC SENTENCES LESS THAN MAN WHO STOLE FROM MOSQUE
Submitted by farhan on Wed, 12/04/2017 - 10:45am

When the High Court halved the sentences of City Harvest Church leaders in its recent judgement, Singapore's social media exploded with anger and disbelief.

Many netizens felt that the court was being too lenient to founding pastor Kong Hee and his management team, who embezzled over $50 million in church funds to fund his wife's lavish pop star lifestyle in the United States.

A lawyer from IRB Law LLP explains that the reason behind the reduced sentences is related to whether the judges sees Kong Hee and the other leaders as "agents" under section 409 of the Penal Code. Section 409 of the Penal Code is an aggravated form of Criminal Breach of Trust.

He wrote: "The offence of Criminal Breach of Trust (‘CBT’) exists in various forms. There are different maximum sentences for: Simple CBT (Maximum imprisonment term of 7 years); CBT by a carrier (Maximum jail term of 15 years); CBT by a clerk or servant (Maximum jail term of 15 years); CBT by a public servant, banker, merchant or agent (Maximum jail term of life imprisonment or 20 years)."

"To convict the CHC members under the most aggravated form of CBT, the prosecution would have had to prove not only that the CHC members were guilty of criminal breach of trust, but also that they were in fact agents. The purpose of this article, it is best not to delve into what constitutes an ‘agent’ as that probably deserves an entire article on its own, but it would suffice to say that in agency relationships, there is a very high level of trust vested in the agent."

"To put it simply, the High Court agreed that the CHC members were guilty of CBT but did not find that the relationship between the offenders and the church to be one that involved agency."

On why the court sentenced a man who stole $1,900 from a Mosque more harshly than it sentenced Kong Hee and the others, IRB had this to say: "The individual who was convicted of stealing $1,900.00 was not charged with theft, but with the offence of ‘house-breaking by night’ to commit theft. This is an aggravated form of house-breaking, and the section under which he was convicted imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of 2 years imprisonment. Furthermore, this individual had committed the act of housebreaking by night 12 times on different occasions, and it appears that he was convicted of four charges of housebreaking by night to commit theft."

What do you think?
https://www.allsingaporestuff.com/a...s-why-chc-sentences-less-man-who-stole-mosque
 
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