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I am a Practitioner of 'The 7e Way of Leaders' where a Leader will Envision, Enable (ASK for TOP D), Empower, Execute, Energize, and Evolve grounded on ETHICS!

Friday, February 2, 2018

Daily Lessons from Life 01 February 2018 - I want to be a Judge!!

"City Harvest case: Prosecution’s bid to reinstate longer jail terms rejected by Apex court

SINGAPORE: The Court of Appeal has on Thursday (Feb 1) found in favour of City Harvest Church’s Kong Hee and five others, rejecting the prosecution’s bid to reinstate the original convictions and sentences of the six church leaders.
“A HARD CASE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO MAKE BAD LAW”: APEX COURT
On Thursday, the Court of Appeal moved to uphold the High Court’s decision to convict the City Harvest six of less serious criminal breach of trust (CBT) charges.
Though Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang acknowledged the “lacuna,” or gap, in the law brought to light in this case, he said the five-judge Court of Appeal would not “paper over” it.
In August last year, Deputy Attorney-General Hri Kumar Nair had argued that if allowed to stand, the High Court’s “absurd” decision would mean that “high-ranking directors … are subject to less severe punishment than low-ranking employees”.
The Senior Counsel urged the apex court to come to other “possible, reasonable” interpretations of the law to remedy the situation.
Lawyers for the six had argued this gap in the law should be filled by legislation, as it is the job of Parliament – not the Court of Appeal – to construct laws."
Lol! After all the drama n wayang n what not, the case brought by the AGC could not stick!! 
It is really ironical as for the case of challenging the recently concluded "reserved Elected President", n even the case of a by-election in a GRC Member vacating her seat; the Deputu AG argued that tje "wording of the laws" does not covered these! N the judges agreed with the AGC's arguments. The government won! These 2 cases happened to be cases where a lot of people were hoping the judges would disagree with the AGC's position. Alas, too bad!!
For this CHC case, the people were hoping that the judges would agree with the government n imposed the original higher punishment as it is  case of "people entrusted with authority committing a criminal breach of trust ("CBT") would be punished LESS THAN the same CBT had it been committed by lower ranking employees!! 
Anyone with a common sense would hv seen the absurdity of the situation N yet, the "learned" judges (was it a split or an unanimous decision??) decided to focus on the "wording" of the laws n NOT the intention of the laws. Passing the buck to the parliament, while sounding good, is actually TWISTED as the judges r supposed to interpret the laws n not just sticking to the words!!
This 3 cases really show that something is wrong with our judges!! Too compliance when they could be less. N vice versa!! Confused lots? 

Oops. M I committing contempt of courts? If so, I withdraw all comments that r in violation n apologise unreservedly. 
I cannot afford a Senior Counsel that will cost me at least Sgd1 million upwards!!
ps: glad to learn that the Minister of Law will be elaborating on this consequence. He should as this bloody long trial had cost the people millions if they were paid like the defence lawyers!!

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