This Week In Court

– week of 22nd May –

This week in court, we saw blatant proof that our law enforcement systems are not designed for rehabilitation, despite trite claims to “rehab, renew, restart”. Instead, they lock up people who use drugs for long periods of time, never giving them a chance to build the lives they deserve. They turn loved ones against each other by imposing high bails, harsh bail conditions and requiring bailors to take adversarial steps like filing police reports against your own child. What’s more, foreigners detained in Singapore don’t even have the right to call their families overseas to organise the help they need, because only one local phone call is allowed. We should not mistake these to be failures or oversights of the system. Rather, they are evidence that these are institutions designed to deliver pain, strip people of their humanity and punish mercilessly.

Case 1

A woman faces a minimum of 7 years incarceration for drug consumption, because her case falls under LT2. LT2 cases are what the CNB deems as “hardcore addicts”.

The woman wished to go to DRC instead, and claimed that the CNB officer had offered her this option earlier but she did not take it as she was not sober then. District Judge Tan Jen Tse did not respond to this.

Punishing people who use drugs with harsh prison terms does not help them, or wider society. Instead, people who use drugs need access to healthcare, harm reduction services and community support.

Instead, under Singapore’s zero-tolerance laws, they tend to go in and out of DRC and prison repeatedly, which robs their lives from them and their families.

Case 2

An Indonesian woman appeared from remand via Zoom for matters related to her bail. She has a boyfriend in Singapore who can bail her out, but she doesn’t have his phone number.

She needed to call her family back in Indonesia, as they have the man’s number. However, Judge Tan only allowed one local phone call.

Such situations are very common. How is it fair to expect foreigners to be able to arrange bail, lawyers or anything else they may need through local phone calls alone?

If any of us were to unfortunately find ourselves in conflict with the law in a foreign country, chances are, we would not be able to seek help through local phone calls only.

If the government can set aside such a huge PR budget for their law enforcement agencies, why can’t they afford to offer foreigners in their custody the option to make international calls?

Case 3

A woman and her brother appeared in court as bailors for the woman’s son. The son had told his mother and uncle that he did not intend to show up to his hearing.

The bailors explained that he had been changing his phone number often and not coming home, making it difficult to contact him. The woman also mentioned that her son has been suicidal.

As a bailor, if you suspect that the accused person isn’t going to show up to court, or you’re unable to stay in contact with them, you are required to make a police report or risk forfeiting the bail amount.

In this case, the mother had to make a police report. The bailors wanted to discharge themselves, but since the accused person wasn’t present in court, they could not.

Judge Tan said there would be a hearing to decide if the full bail sum needs to be forfeited.

It is very tragic how our legal system turns family members against each other. How can this system claim to be rehabilitative when it tears people apart from their support systems through such adversarial approaches? Family support has been shown to be one of the most important protective factors that keeps people out of prison.

But in this and many other ways, the system puts families that are already struggling under immense stress.