The Transformative Justice Collective has received two POFMA Correction Directions, dated 8 and 11 August 2024. These directions pertain to posts highlighting executions that took place on 2 and 7 August 2024.
We categorically reject the government’s claims that we have spread falsehoods. In both directions, the government fundamentally mischaracterised our posts on the two executions.
The government’s “correct facts”, as stated in their two directions, actually confirmed what TJC observed in our posts: that both prisoners had pending civil applications—and in one case, an additional pending criminal review application—when their execution notices were issued. These facts are glaringly absent from CNB’s statements on the executions (see here and here).
In respect of the person executed on 2 August, given that their review application was only heard on 26 July 2024 and dismissed 30 July 2024, the timeframe raises the question of whether the President signed the Order for Execution, on advice of the Cabinet and the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), before the matter was even heard in court. Regardless of whether this review application was “materially similar” to previous applications, it is not for the government to substitute the Court’s role with their own view on the potential outcome of the review application.
The government also refers to the 2 August ruling by the Court of Appeal that the pending civil appeal would not affect the prisoner’s conviction or sentence. However, this pronouncement was made by the Court of Appeal subsequent to the issuance of the notice of execution, and the prisoner was hanged on 2 August itself. Similarly, the second prisoner’s later withdrawal from a civil application does not detract from the fact that he was given an execution notice while he was still party to that ongoing case.
The issuance of execution notices while prisoners are still party to ongoing legal proceedings is, in our view, an affront to due process. We maintain that view. The government might have a different opinion, but they have themselves confirmed the facts TJC reported.
In respect of the allegation that we falsely stated that prisoners have to rush to prepare their own cases, TJC was in court in August 2022 when twenty-four death row prisoners had to appear over Zoom, without a lawyer, to represent themselves.
Their civil application had been filed on 1 August 2022, two days after one prisoner had received a notice of execution. The case conference was held on the morning of 2 August, with simultaneous submissions to be filed by 6pm on the same day. The application was struck out at the High Court on 3 August, and the appeal at the Court of Appeal heard on 4 August.
The Court then stood down for seven hours. The Court of Appeal finally dismissed the application around midnight, delivering a full written judgment. The prisoner was hanged, as scheduled, around 6am.
We are also familiar with two instances where the AGC wrote to the Court of Appeal asking that civil proceedings, involving unrepresented death row prisoners, be expedited.
In April/May this year, multiple execution notices were issued to prisoners party to a civil application challenging the constitutionality of the blanket ban on legal aid in post-appeal applications. These executions were stayed a day or two before the scheduled hanging. It hardly matters if these stays were issued because prisoners had filed applications; these prisoners should not have been placed in positions where they had to file further applications in efforts to remain alive long enough to see ongoing cases through.
Perhaps the state sees the death penalty as an administrative box-ticking exercise. TJC, however, is most concerned with human lives. We do not have anywhere near the same power or platform as Minister K Shanmugam, who ordered this POFMA direction—and who, we note, has still not responded to death row prisoners’ families who, in October last year, asked to meet him—but we have borne witness to the pain, trauma and grief of too many death row prisoners and their loved ones in these instances.
In our view, the filing of post-appeal applications is not a malicious attempt to abuse the court process, but a human response to a barbaric punishment like the death penalty. It is unsurprising that death row prisoners file applications seeking reviews or stays of execution—who wouldn’t, if placed in such a horrific situation? We should never forget that these are human beings who want to live. It is not the prisoners’ determination to file applications, raise questions about their cases or challenge points of law that is untoward here. It is the state’s expectation that people should simply wait, meekly and obediently, for their turn to be killed, that is callous and inhumane. The gravity and irreversibility of imposing the death penalty on a person means that every doubt, question and issue raised should be given a thorough airing, regardless of what stage they are brought up at.
We never claimed that the government did not follow appropriate procedures to pass laws through parliament. What we called out is the government’s introduction of legislation such as the Post-Appeal Applications in Capital Cases Act (PACC) that is, in our view, an incursion into the fundamental rights of death row prisoners. What is more, on 8 May 2024, Minister Shanmugam, in response to a parliamentary question from the Leader of the Opposition, gave this chilling response: “What I was suggesting is that as we see how people file their applications, we learn. And looking at the methodology, for example, if there is a constitutional challenge—and there was last year—we may have to consider whether we need to amend the Constitution to make sure that any future constitutional challenges of such a nature will not succeed.”
We urge readers to consider the Minister’s words carefully, and whether they agree with this approach to our Constitution, the highest law of the land.
We condemn the increasing weaponisation of POFMA to target opposing opinions, which has the effect of silencing criticism. This is evident in the directions issued to TJC, and how the directions have wrongly characterised our posts via the simplistic “subject statements”. We have published the Directions in full, at the end of this post, for the public to view.
Critics have long pointed out the dangers of POFMA to freedom of expression in Singapore—the government only continues to prove its critics right.
In closing, we urge Minister Shanmugam to watch and learn from this video that helpfully explains the difference between facts and opinions:
Transformative Justice Collective 