President's pardon and ISA

Dear Mr Tan Kin Lian,

Please consider the following two issues as part of your Presidential campaign.

President’s Pardon

Currently, the President’s pardon on capital offences is decided by the Cabinet. The President just acts on the advice of the Cabinet. The Judiciary is supposed to be independent of the Cabinet. However many citizens are not comfortable with this approach, especially since the Judges are appointed by members of the Cabinet and/or the relevant ministries. This appears to make the clemency review process biased, as there is no independence and transparency in the deliberation process. Furthermore, calling it the President’s Pardon gives the incorrect impression that the President is deciding on the matter independently, when in fact it is not ie the Cabinet is deciding on the matter.

To bring independence and transparency into this process, may I suggest the President, together with his Council of Presidential Advisers, review clemency cases independently of the Cabinet. The President may seek advice from any other resource as he deems fit to assist in his decision-making process, as long as it is not from the Cabinet/Judiciary. I believe this will be fairer to the convict, as there will be a separate set of minds looking at the matter. This will provide more credence to the clemency process and reflect accurately the term “President’s Pardon”. The constitution may have to be amended to achieve this.

ISA Act

The ISA Act should be reviewed to reduce its scope. It should not be used to detain political opponents and dissidents.

It may be used to detain potential “criminals” who have intent and plans to commit crimes but have not done so yet. Such potential “criminals” may commit crimes if let loose. They may be detained without trial, even though no offence has been committed and no charges have been pressed against them. An example of such cases would be terrorists. Another example would be in the case of suspected “criminals” where the authorities are in the long-drawn process of gathering evidence against him. In the interests of national security, and since the law has no other way of handling such cases, detention without trial may be justified.

The constitution should be amended to limit the scope of the ISA Act to such cases only.

 VSL