- Joined
- Jan 5, 2010
- Messages
- 2,096
- Points
- 83
Commonsense advice for the judges hearing Kong Hee AGC appeal case in court tomorrow :
Shame on Kong Hee, no balls guy...
He should have stood up and corrected judge that he was indeed an 'agent' (i.e. big/ biggest boss of the mega church has ever had) and no ordinary small fry @CHC (which incidentally would receive higher penalty as compared to 'non-agent' which is lesser penalty for small fry people).
I think old law is split into 2 punishment arms hinging on the issue of 'agent' because some professionals are more culpable because they are professionals/ experts in a certain field.
E.g. A chartered accountant who misapproprates $$$ is more culpable than your personal (short skirt) secretary who has no $$$ training save PSLE/ O level certificate. A licensed dr who rape patient with mis-prescribed sedation is more culpable than stranger who rape a drunk woman, sleeping nude on pavement : all because these registered professionals have special training and thus awarded special trust, privilege / status in society which they need to respect: their special status played a large part in the perpetration of the crime. At the very least, they should receive no lesser sentence and have their professional license to practice revoked based on severity of the offence.
Pastors also have special status since not any congregation member can suka suka take to the pulpit to address the congregation. Even the gahmen accords religious organizations special respect by allowing them to register as charities : meaning zero property tax, zero income tax, zero GST etc.
Thus when a pastor who is also church board chairman siphons church funds to fund his wife striptease pop stardom campaign, forces parishioners to buy her pop CDs and obfuscate church financial account information to hide his theft, this is not simple criminal breech of trust by the barely literate Bangladeshi (construction worker on MC after workplace accudent) office boy or tea-lady : this is corruption and abuse of authority by a religious/ community leader in the highest degree.
Religious leaders need to be a paragon of morality fir the sake of social stability.
Perhaps old law was written at a time where a paper trail of $$ accounts was uncommon and the weight of gold coins lost might be in dispute depending on the brand of weighing scale used: thus the higher emphasis on the 'agent' status of the accused. Perhaps the concept of 'agent' was added to give judges food for though in judgement and question if an illiterate/ lowly paid accused person may indeed steal a large sum of $$$ or if he were just a scape goat, if indeed guilty at all?
Even if the preceding judges had been confused/ unlearned about the definition of 'agent', perhaps we can all agree that S$50m is no small change and that alone should overshadow any dispute arising from the understanding of the term 'agent'.
Or are Singapore court judges too afraid of the after world, which many religious leaders make lofty claims to have personal influence over or secret knowledge about ?
PS: i have no formal legal training save for reading newspapers court reports and some library books on law.
PS: Dear Mod, this is not subjudice because commonsense can never be biased/ wrong. So pls do not delete this post.
Shame on Kong Hee, no balls guy...
He should have stood up and corrected judge that he was indeed an 'agent' (i.e. big/ biggest boss of the mega church has ever had) and no ordinary small fry @CHC (which incidentally would receive higher penalty as compared to 'non-agent' which is lesser penalty for small fry people).
I think old law is split into 2 punishment arms hinging on the issue of 'agent' because some professionals are more culpable because they are professionals/ experts in a certain field.
E.g. A chartered accountant who misapproprates $$$ is more culpable than your personal (short skirt) secretary who has no $$$ training save PSLE/ O level certificate. A licensed dr who rape patient with mis-prescribed sedation is more culpable than stranger who rape a drunk woman, sleeping nude on pavement : all because these registered professionals have special training and thus awarded special trust, privilege / status in society which they need to respect: their special status played a large part in the perpetration of the crime. At the very least, they should receive no lesser sentence and have their professional license to practice revoked based on severity of the offence.
Pastors also have special status since not any congregation member can suka suka take to the pulpit to address the congregation. Even the gahmen accords religious organizations special respect by allowing them to register as charities : meaning zero property tax, zero income tax, zero GST etc.
Thus when a pastor who is also church board chairman siphons church funds to fund his wife striptease pop stardom campaign, forces parishioners to buy her pop CDs and obfuscate church financial account information to hide his theft, this is not simple criminal breech of trust by the barely literate Bangladeshi (construction worker on MC after workplace accudent) office boy or tea-lady : this is corruption and abuse of authority by a religious/ community leader in the highest degree.
Religious leaders need to be a paragon of morality fir the sake of social stability.
Perhaps old law was written at a time where a paper trail of $$ accounts was uncommon and the weight of gold coins lost might be in dispute depending on the brand of weighing scale used: thus the higher emphasis on the 'agent' status of the accused. Perhaps the concept of 'agent' was added to give judges food for though in judgement and question if an illiterate/ lowly paid accused person may indeed steal a large sum of $$$ or if he were just a scape goat, if indeed guilty at all?
Even if the preceding judges had been confused/ unlearned about the definition of 'agent', perhaps we can all agree that S$50m is no small change and that alone should overshadow any dispute arising from the understanding of the term 'agent'.
Or are Singapore court judges too afraid of the after world, which many religious leaders make lofty claims to have personal influence over or secret knowledge about ?
PS: i have no formal legal training save for reading newspapers court reports and some library books on law.
PS: Dear Mod, this is not subjudice because commonsense can never be biased/ wrong. So pls do not delete this post.
