In Parliament yesterday, Teo Chee Hean, the minister with oversight over the civil service said it was "ill-judged" for the senior and highly-paid civil servant to have done so.

It was "quite inappropriate", said Peter Ho, the head of the civil service.

Bloggers and forummers might take this to be vindication.

I am not so sure. Teo also said that what Tan did during his leave was "his private decision". The issue, therefore, lay in publicising it, and the better course, as implied, would have been to keep quiet about it.

Keeping it away from the public eye would certainly have served the interests of the ruling class, but would ignorance have done ordinary citizens any good? This episode brings home, in a way that dry statistics might not, the obscenity of the salaries our government dishes out to themselves and their courtiers.

It further brings home the elitist attitudes of those staffing the senior ranks -- these are people who think that throwing S$46,000 making fancy food is something worth boasting about.

I think we're better off knowing about it. And it is precisely because the common people are better off knowing that the government thinks it would have been preferable for Tan to have kept his mouth shut.

In his article, complete with photographs, Tan had recounted how he, his wife and son, had attended Le Cordon Bleu school in Paris, at a cost of about S$15,000 each. This did not include airfare and accommodation. Many Singaporeans don't even earn $15,000 in a whole year.

Teo said the article "showed a lack of sensitivity" and "struck a discordant note during the current difficult economic circumstances when it is especially important to show solidarity and empathy for Singaporeans who are facing uncertainties and hardship."

As Permanent Secretary, Tan is the senior-most administrative official at his ministry, the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources. Permanent Secretaries currently draw salaries of as much as S$2 million a year, depending on which grade they are on.

Peter Ho had spoken with Tan to communicate these views, Teo told members of parliament, but the Public Service Division declined to confirm to the Straits Times if this was in the form of a formal warning letter. [1] 

* * * * *

Another Chee Soon Juan law is going to be added to our law books soon, said Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng. Well, not quite in those words, but his meaning was clear enough.

What is a Chee Soon Juan law?

It is a kind of legislation that comes out of the ruling People's Action Party's irresistible urge to crush all dissent. They do calibrate their response, though. Opponents who generally operate within the highly circumscribed space the PAP provides, thus "playing within the rules" -– rules where opponents are never allowed to win big time -– are spared. But those who insist on being creative about expressing dissent, or who insist there is really no such thing as "the Singapore way" (defined by the PAP, of course) but universal standards of human rights -– they must be crushed. Chief among them is Chee Soon Juan, the leader of the Singapore Democratic Party.

And so our Attorney-General's Chambers devise ever more ludicrous laws that not only take leave of basic principles of civil rights, but also do NOT address any issue that vexes the public. They are quick fixes that seek to impale one man and his plans.

Of course, they can be used to deal with other men and women who take inspiration from him or other resistance leaders in history. And by this token, the case will be made to parliament that the law addresses a general need, not a specific man.

But it isn't hard to see through it. That's why they are called Chee Soon Juan laws.

In the works, said the Straits Times, is a new law to give the police pre-emptive powers, for instance, to act earlier to prevent people from congregating in certain places, such as Parliament House and the Istana. [2] 

The legislative changes are expected to be tabled in Parliament and passed in time for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit here in November, the newspaper said.

That immediately brings to mind what happened during the IMF/World Bank summit in 2006, when Chee and members of the Singapore Democratic Party staged a sit-in at Hong Lim Green. It gained worldwide media attention, showing up the repressive nature of the Singapore government.

They had wanted to march to Parliament House, but the police refused to give them a permit. By staging a sit-in, they got more media attention than they ever imagined.

Now, like the proverbial generals who spend their time planning to fight the last war, ministers and law drafters are planning their response to sit-ins in time for APEC. Readers are invited to laugh out loud.

Wong also mentioned to the Straits Times, the instances when Burmese activists held an "illegal" march down Orchard Road. "They make a show of breaking the law; the police watch and do nothing and can only follow up with investigation after the show is over when they pack up and leave," he said. "This cannot go on."

Why not? What damage has been done to any member of the public? So long as no damage has been done, to come down any harder would be disproportionate.

We must remember: laws are meant to serve the people, not the government.

Wong mentioned that other countries, such as Australia, already had laws that give police summary powers to disperse people wherever they gather. And so I looked them up.

Section 197 of New South Wales' Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002 [3] says,

Section 197:

(1) A police officer may give a direction to a person in a public place if the police officer believes on reasonable grounds that the person’s behaviour or presence in the place (referred to in this Part as relevant conduct):

(a) is obstructing another person or persons or traffic, or

(b) constitutes harassment or intimidation of another person or persons, or

(c) is causing or likely to cause fear to another person or persons, so long as the relevant conduct would be such as to cause fear to a person of reasonable firmness, or

(d) is for the purpose of unlawfully supplying, or intending to unlawfully supply, or soliciting another person or persons to unlawfully supply, any prohibited drug, or

(e) is for the purpose of obtaining, procuring or purchasing any prohibited drug that it would be unlawful for the person to possess.

(2) A direction given by a police officer under this section must be reasonable in the circumstances for the purpose of:

(a) reducing or eliminating the obstruction, harassment, intimidation or fear, or

(b) stopping the supply, or soliciting to supply, of the prohibited drug, or

(c) stopping the obtaining, procuring or purchasing of the prohibited drug.

(3) The other person or persons referred to in subsection (1) need not be in the public place but must be near that place at the time the relevant conduct is being engaged in.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (1) (c), no person of reasonable firmness need actually be, or be likely to be, present at the scene.

 
Note: the word "firmness" appears to mean "of rational mind, not irrationally apprehensive."

This law has its critics. For example, you can see from this website a comment that:

Mostly, incidents of the exercise of these discretionary powers are never known to courts or review bodies. If a person feels they have been wronged by the unfair exercise of these powers and wants to bring it to a court for appropriate redress, they have to instigate costly actions in tort for trespass against the person. This situation is the opposite of the normal use of police powers: their actions and directives usually entail judicial proceedings, during which the court will become aware of decisions made by police in the exercise of their powers in the circumstances of the case.

Precisely because of its discretionary nature, move-on orders can be easily abused. Experience suggests that police are more ready to use these powers on racial and sexual minorities, and the socially disadvantaged, probably because they are quicker to jump to the subjective perception of "loitering" or "obstruction" in the case of lower status people. It can even be abused when used against canvassers, bloggers, reporters or photographers wanting to document a scene, especially if the scene is not flattering to the police or the government.

In the Australian Capital Territory, the equivalent law is much narrower in scope. Section 4 of Crime Prevention Powers Act 1998 [4], prescribes move-on powers only when violence is likely.

4. Move-on powers 

(1) This section applies if there are reasonable grounds for a police officer to believe that a person in a public place has engaged, or is likely to engage, in violent conduct in that place. 

(2) The police officer may direct the person to leave the vicinity of the public place. 

(3) The direction may be made subject to either or both of the following conditions: 

(a) if the police officer has reasonable grounds for believing that the person is likely to engage in violent conduct while, or immediately after, leaving the vicinity by a particular route­that the person leave the vicinity by a different route (whether the route is stated or unstated); 

(b) that the person not return to the vicinity for a stated period of not longer than 6 hours. 

(4) A person must not, without reasonable excuse, contravene a direction (including a condition of a direction) given to the person under subsection (2). 

Maximum penalty: 2 penalty units. 

(5) This section does not apply in relation to a person who, whether in the company of other people or not, is­ 

(a) picketing a place of employment; or 

(b) demonstrating or protesting about a particular issue; or 

(c) speaking, bearing or otherwise identifying with a banner, placard or sign or otherwise behaving in a way that is apparently intended to publicise the person’s view about a particular issue.

 
What Singapore's version will look like is anybody's guess at this time. I have the gravest suspicion that it will go beyond the already sweeping NSW version; perhaps even, like the Infectious Diseases Act, authorise the police to issue pre-emptive confinement orders.

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