Source: Vincent Wijeysingha Facebook Notes
A Test of Citizenship We Have Failed. Yet Again
May 24, 2014 at 12:13am
Andy Wong’s blog post, ‘The Truth about Temasek, CPF and Lee Hsien Loong’ (http://andyxianwong.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/the-truth-about-temasek-cpf-and-lee-hsein-loong/) neatly sets out the issues at the heart of the PM’s defamation action against Roy Ngerng. It examines not only the action itself but also the authentic questions he has not answered by resorting at the first instance to law. It really does put the entire CPF system in the dock, joined there by an administration allergic to inconvenient questions.
It seems to me that we have hitherto based our discussion on whether Ngerng can substantiate his assertions, whether he should have used the words he did, whether he framed the issue accurately, whether his methodology and findings were accurate. For me, however, and I really think for you as well, the substantive concern should not lie against Ngerng but at two other places: (a) whether the authorities are entitled to such a non-transparent way of dealing with the big questions about our public administration, and (b) whether public officials may avoid these questions which is the effect of resorting to law.
The Law Minister says we may only criticise the government when we have hard facts because this preserves political integrity. I disagree. While the hard facts are for one reason or another unforthcoming and in the face of incessant – and non-transparent – amendments to our public policies, the government, of which Shanmugam is a part, is not entitled in the least to this view. You cannot blind a person and then blame him for his blindness.
Redirecting the issue back to Roy – in a manner of speaking, victim-blaming – ignores several facts about the background of defamation in Singapore. It makes assumptions that are inaccurate and exonerates the administration when, as citizens, we should be holding it to a far higher standard of accountability.
By censuring Ngerng and demanding that he verify his claims in court, we are pretending that in terms of access to information, Ngerng is on a level playing field when clearly he is not. Over almost six decades of unbroken government, the PAP has thrown a veil around the nuts and bolts of our governance, particularly – especially – the Temasek-GIC-CPF nexus.
The first tentative questions about public administration in an almost entirely non-transparent regime are bound to contain methodological limitations. Scientists know this instinctively. To imagine that the first questioners can be held to the same level of accuracy that would obtain in, say, a country possessed of Freedom of Information legislation is to consciously misunderstand the situation from the standpoint of the questioner. In short, it suits ministers to demand such a high standard of transparency that they themselves do not meet. It also makes safe our own position as citizens while benefitting in the long term from the audacity and courage of the questioners.
Because, when speaking one's mind attracts such exemplary (and effective) correction, discretion has most certainly become the better part of citizenship. Or, in rather more pedestrian language, we don’t want to get sued. This, it appears, has become the price of our integrity. Do we measure the circumference of our humanity, our dignity, beyond their proximity to the libel courts? Lamentably, it appears not.
Recall my colleague, Chee Soon Juan’s, inconvenient questions almost two decades ago and Mr Jeyaretnam’s questions a decade before that. That the government can no longer get away with dealing with them as Lee Hsien Loong’s father did is testament to their audacity and courage. We benefit from it today. But how many of us were willing to stand on their side when the going got tough. Indeed, except in the smallest part, none did. We agreed, and continue to agree, with the Law Minister’s assertion that transparency in a non-transparent system is conceivable.
We have tried to sound reasonable. Rational. Responsible. But in demanding that Roy Ngerng go to court we are pretending that his access to lawyers is the same as that enjoyed by members of the administration who can afford the best, ie. most expensive, lawyers with long years of experience in libel litigation. We are pretending that our legal fraternity, so avoidant of controversy, would be eager to defend a simple citizen against so mighty a personage as our Prime Minister.
And we avoid an even tougher question. Can our judiciary, unblemished as their reputations are, be objectively expected to arbitrate an action when your plaintiff is also your employer? I cast no aspersions on our judges, they are honourable men and women sitting on a bench regarded highly across the world. But consider this: in defamation actions under the Common Law, the question of whether an individual’s reputation is injured is the responsibility of the ‘reasonable person’ materialised in the jury system. No judge, whether employed by the state or otherwise, in Singapore or otherwise, is considered a reasonable person. Note well I do not say they are unreasonable persons. However, their standing, their status, their specialist knowledge, and their situation on the bench in a particular case, puts them outside the definition of a reasonable person for the purposes of law. In an English appeal case in 1978, it was held by the appeal judges that a reasonable person,
As a non-lawyer, to me the key concept in that definition is how a reasonable person’s fellow citizens expect him to act. In our system, we can never know how a reasonable person might act because there are no reasonable persons in our courtrooms, only judges and lawyers.
By demanding that Ngerng take on the PM, we assume this to be a private spat between private citizens where both, therefore, have limited opportunities to clear their names. In fact members of the government have not only the entire domestic broadcast and print media at their disposal and abundant invitations to conferences and seminars and TV programmes, but also access to the world’s media, not to mention the friendship of other world leaders and speaking rights at international forums such as the UN and ASEAN. Should they seek an adequate opportunity to set the record straight, they could if they so chose without beggaring their citizens.
We assume the PM – and every other government member who chooses to arbitrate his reputation at law – is a private citizen. He is not. He is the undoubted leader of an established party in an established nation. And an administration, we should add, that has, over the years, brought every public body and many private ones under their supervision. Clearing his name would be child’s play compared to an ordinary citizen whose reputation is damaged by the untruths of his neighbour. Suing Roy Ngerng is absolutely unnecessary. It would so damage the PM’s reputation were the decks stacked more evenly.
The track record of the PAP in its use of the courts to resolve matters of reputation raises, at the very least, questions about their purpose. Not every citizen critical of ministers has incurred their wrath. It appears that the more popular you are, the better read your blog, the more well-known your writings, the higher up your place in the pecking order, the more likely you are to cop it from our ministers. Think Chee Soon Juan, think J B Jeyaretnam, think Tang Liang Hong, Lynn Lee and Alex Au.
Could some questions at least be legitimately posed: Are defamation actions by members of the government intended to restore their damaged reputation or to inoculate society from disagreeable public intellectuals? Do they serve more to punish the recalcitrant, the undisciplined, the outspoken; the ‘troublemakers’ as the first Prime Minister liked to call them? Are crippling financial burdens imposed by damages a means of crippling popular dissent?
I do not know how badly the PM’s reputation has been damaged. I do not know how hurt he has been. That is a matter for him and his lawyers and, if it comes to it, the courts. I only know that by choosing to sue Roy Ngerng, he has yet again relegated citizens to the status of children, to be smacked when they get out of line. Yet again.
We have become so habituated to this state of affairs that the ‘substantiate-or-be-sued’ formula appears rational. Intelligible. Sensible. We have become so habituated to a particular conception of dissent, a particular interpretation of citizenship, midwifed mostly by Lee Kuan Yew's wanton and salacious wielding of his hatchet, that we run from the blows that even a passing homage to dignity must of necessity receive. I do not acquit myself, much less exclude myself, from this shameful First World farmyard that our nation has become. I merely point out the obvious.
To me, the debate on the PM's defamation action does not hinge on what can and cannot be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. It does not hinge on the research methodology of those who comment on public affairs. It does not even hinge on the names that, in the heat of the debate, we call one another. Throughout these millennia of human existence, men and women have been punished for upsetting the public apple cart, for asking those questions of the powerful that they wish we would not. That is so common, so unremitting, as to be entirely unworthy of comment. The powerful do not get to where they are by explaining themselves to the hoi polloi.
No, to me, the test is one of citizenship. And we have failed. Yet again.
Distance ourselves from these brave souls if we must. But do not then imagine we can easily redeem our citizenship later. We will have forfeited it.
A Test of Citizenship We Have Failed. Yet Again
May 24, 2014 at 12:13am
Andy Wong’s blog post, ‘The Truth about Temasek, CPF and Lee Hsien Loong’ (http://andyxianwong.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/the-truth-about-temasek-cpf-and-lee-hsein-loong/) neatly sets out the issues at the heart of the PM’s defamation action against Roy Ngerng. It examines not only the action itself but also the authentic questions he has not answered by resorting at the first instance to law. It really does put the entire CPF system in the dock, joined there by an administration allergic to inconvenient questions.
It seems to me that we have hitherto based our discussion on whether Ngerng can substantiate his assertions, whether he should have used the words he did, whether he framed the issue accurately, whether his methodology and findings were accurate. For me, however, and I really think for you as well, the substantive concern should not lie against Ngerng but at two other places: (a) whether the authorities are entitled to such a non-transparent way of dealing with the big questions about our public administration, and (b) whether public officials may avoid these questions which is the effect of resorting to law.
The Law Minister says we may only criticise the government when we have hard facts because this preserves political integrity. I disagree. While the hard facts are for one reason or another unforthcoming and in the face of incessant – and non-transparent – amendments to our public policies, the government, of which Shanmugam is a part, is not entitled in the least to this view. You cannot blind a person and then blame him for his blindness.
Redirecting the issue back to Roy – in a manner of speaking, victim-blaming – ignores several facts about the background of defamation in Singapore. It makes assumptions that are inaccurate and exonerates the administration when, as citizens, we should be holding it to a far higher standard of accountability.
By censuring Ngerng and demanding that he verify his claims in court, we are pretending that in terms of access to information, Ngerng is on a level playing field when clearly he is not. Over almost six decades of unbroken government, the PAP has thrown a veil around the nuts and bolts of our governance, particularly – especially – the Temasek-GIC-CPF nexus.
The first tentative questions about public administration in an almost entirely non-transparent regime are bound to contain methodological limitations. Scientists know this instinctively. To imagine that the first questioners can be held to the same level of accuracy that would obtain in, say, a country possessed of Freedom of Information legislation is to consciously misunderstand the situation from the standpoint of the questioner. In short, it suits ministers to demand such a high standard of transparency that they themselves do not meet. It also makes safe our own position as citizens while benefitting in the long term from the audacity and courage of the questioners.
Because, when speaking one's mind attracts such exemplary (and effective) correction, discretion has most certainly become the better part of citizenship. Or, in rather more pedestrian language, we don’t want to get sued. This, it appears, has become the price of our integrity. Do we measure the circumference of our humanity, our dignity, beyond their proximity to the libel courts? Lamentably, it appears not.
Recall my colleague, Chee Soon Juan’s, inconvenient questions almost two decades ago and Mr Jeyaretnam’s questions a decade before that. That the government can no longer get away with dealing with them as Lee Hsien Loong’s father did is testament to their audacity and courage. We benefit from it today. But how many of us were willing to stand on their side when the going got tough. Indeed, except in the smallest part, none did. We agreed, and continue to agree, with the Law Minister’s assertion that transparency in a non-transparent system is conceivable.
We have tried to sound reasonable. Rational. Responsible. But in demanding that Roy Ngerng go to court we are pretending that his access to lawyers is the same as that enjoyed by members of the administration who can afford the best, ie. most expensive, lawyers with long years of experience in libel litigation. We are pretending that our legal fraternity, so avoidant of controversy, would be eager to defend a simple citizen against so mighty a personage as our Prime Minister.
And we avoid an even tougher question. Can our judiciary, unblemished as their reputations are, be objectively expected to arbitrate an action when your plaintiff is also your employer? I cast no aspersions on our judges, they are honourable men and women sitting on a bench regarded highly across the world. But consider this: in defamation actions under the Common Law, the question of whether an individual’s reputation is injured is the responsibility of the ‘reasonable person’ materialised in the jury system. No judge, whether employed by the state or otherwise, in Singapore or otherwise, is considered a reasonable person. Note well I do not say they are unreasonable persons. However, their standing, their status, their specialist knowledge, and their situation on the bench in a particular case, puts them outside the definition of a reasonable person for the purposes of law. In an English appeal case in 1978, it was held by the appeal judges that a reasonable person,
means an ordinary person of either sex, not exceptionally excitable or pugnacious, but possessed of such powers of self control as everyone is entitled to expect that his fellow citizens will exercise in society as it is today.
As a non-lawyer, to me the key concept in that definition is how a reasonable person’s fellow citizens expect him to act. In our system, we can never know how a reasonable person might act because there are no reasonable persons in our courtrooms, only judges and lawyers.
By demanding that Ngerng take on the PM, we assume this to be a private spat between private citizens where both, therefore, have limited opportunities to clear their names. In fact members of the government have not only the entire domestic broadcast and print media at their disposal and abundant invitations to conferences and seminars and TV programmes, but also access to the world’s media, not to mention the friendship of other world leaders and speaking rights at international forums such as the UN and ASEAN. Should they seek an adequate opportunity to set the record straight, they could if they so chose without beggaring their citizens.
We assume the PM – and every other government member who chooses to arbitrate his reputation at law – is a private citizen. He is not. He is the undoubted leader of an established party in an established nation. And an administration, we should add, that has, over the years, brought every public body and many private ones under their supervision. Clearing his name would be child’s play compared to an ordinary citizen whose reputation is damaged by the untruths of his neighbour. Suing Roy Ngerng is absolutely unnecessary. It would so damage the PM’s reputation were the decks stacked more evenly.
The track record of the PAP in its use of the courts to resolve matters of reputation raises, at the very least, questions about their purpose. Not every citizen critical of ministers has incurred their wrath. It appears that the more popular you are, the better read your blog, the more well-known your writings, the higher up your place in the pecking order, the more likely you are to cop it from our ministers. Think Chee Soon Juan, think J B Jeyaretnam, think Tang Liang Hong, Lynn Lee and Alex Au.
Could some questions at least be legitimately posed: Are defamation actions by members of the government intended to restore their damaged reputation or to inoculate society from disagreeable public intellectuals? Do they serve more to punish the recalcitrant, the undisciplined, the outspoken; the ‘troublemakers’ as the first Prime Minister liked to call them? Are crippling financial burdens imposed by damages a means of crippling popular dissent?
I do not know how badly the PM’s reputation has been damaged. I do not know how hurt he has been. That is a matter for him and his lawyers and, if it comes to it, the courts. I only know that by choosing to sue Roy Ngerng, he has yet again relegated citizens to the status of children, to be smacked when they get out of line. Yet again.
We have become so habituated to this state of affairs that the ‘substantiate-or-be-sued’ formula appears rational. Intelligible. Sensible. We have become so habituated to a particular conception of dissent, a particular interpretation of citizenship, midwifed mostly by Lee Kuan Yew's wanton and salacious wielding of his hatchet, that we run from the blows that even a passing homage to dignity must of necessity receive. I do not acquit myself, much less exclude myself, from this shameful First World farmyard that our nation has become. I merely point out the obvious.
To me, the debate on the PM's defamation action does not hinge on what can and cannot be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. It does not hinge on the research methodology of those who comment on public affairs. It does not even hinge on the names that, in the heat of the debate, we call one another. Throughout these millennia of human existence, men and women have been punished for upsetting the public apple cart, for asking those questions of the powerful that they wish we would not. That is so common, so unremitting, as to be entirely unworthy of comment. The powerful do not get to where they are by explaining themselves to the hoi polloi.
No, to me, the test is one of citizenship. And we have failed. Yet again.
Distance ourselves from these brave souls if we must. But do not then imagine we can easily redeem our citizenship later. We will have forfeited it.
