INDEPENDENCE AND INTEGRITY OF SINGAPORE'S JUDICIARY

Debate resumed.

Mr Davinder Singh (Toa Payoh GRC): Sir, laws are vital for the maintenance of order in society. Laws are made to prescribe the rights and obligations of government and those who are governed. Our laws also define the norms of acceptable social conduct.

Laws will only be effective if they are respected by the people. There is no universal law which prescribes that all citizens must support legislation or decrees made by States. People accept legislation only if, first, there is a deep-rooted and widespread belief that the executive and/or the legislature's motives in passing or amending legislation are nothing short of honourable and, secondly, that the laws will be fairly and justly applied and enforced.

The most well-intentioned piece of legislation will be ineffectual if a dishonest judiciary disregards the law. If that happens, it undermines all the work done by the executive and the legislature. People who lose faith in the judiciary will lose their trust in the entire system. It is very important to understand that in the majority of cases, the average man encounters the law only when he is in court.

The law only becomes a reality and relevant to them when they are alleged to have transgressed it or when a dispute arises which cannot be resolved without judicial intervention. A rotten judiciary will leave a lasting impression on anyone hoping to see justice served. An accused or a litigant who feels that he has been short-changed by the courts because of extra-legal factors will not only lose his respect for the judiciary, but for the system. Why should he have any regard for a government which has fixed the judicial odds?

When people lose respect for the judiciary, they also lose regard for Members of Parliament, because the perception will be that we make laws in the knowledge that those laws will not be justly applied and enforced. Therefore, the legislature comes in for criticism every time the judiciary comes in for attack. We therefore have a duty and a responsibility to demand that those who allege corruption prove it or abandon the charge.

There is another reason why we cannot sit back and do nothing. Judges are in an extremely difficult position. They have the power to punish anyone for any act or publication which is calculated to bring the court or a judge into contempt, or to lower his authority. If someone says that the judicial system is crooked, the courts can and will punish. But every time the courts do that, they expose themselves to further criticism. The judiciary, as a rule, does not engage in a debate with the public or its accusers on the issue of its independence and integrity. It therefore cannot defend itself. Parliament therefore has a responsibility to protect the honour of our judges.

It is the duty of every Member of Parliament, first, to take a position if and when one of our institutions is ridiculed or discredited and, secondly, to justify his or her stand. We have a duty to defend the system or, if there is a flaw, change it.

Sir, this motion has been inspired by the recent events at Williams College and their aftermath in Singapore. These are the facts:

On 15th September 1995, Dr Chee attended a counter panel discussion held by those opposed to the honour bestowed by Williams College on our Prime Minister. It was chaired by Mr Crane. Mr Seow was one of the panellists.

Mr Seow attacked the judiciary in Singapore. Among other things, he said that the judiciary is neither free nor independent and that judges "lean over backwards in favour of government". He described Chief Justice Yong as a "faithful crony" of Senior Minister.

At the same discussion, Dr Chee, speaking from the floor, said, "I must say that I do agree very much with many things that Mr Seow and Dr Lingle have said." Dr Chee also said that he and his party faced some of the difficulties which Mr Seow talked about. He then went on to inform those present that he would be speaking the following day during which he hoped to address misperceptions "positive or negative" about Singapore.

The following day, Dr Chee spoke on a number of issues. In his speech, he commented on some of the criticisms that had been levelled against Singapore. However, he was silent on Mr Seow's attack on our judiciary.

Arising from these facts, the issues in this motion are whether Dr Chee and the SDP have endorsed and/or supported an attack on the independence and integrity of our judiciary and, if so, whether there is any basis for the attack?

I will deal with the first issue. Did Dr Chee and the SDP endorse and support the attack on our judiciary? It has been suggested by Dr Chee and the SDP that they have not endorsed or supported Mr Seow's view because neither has made a statement impugning the integrity of the judiciary. That, with respect, misses the point. While it is true that ordinarily a statement is made by an express assertion of fact, it is equally true that one can make a statement by one's conduct. It is also the case that while usually very little can be construed from mere silence, in some circumstances, silence speaks volumes about one's true intentions and beliefs. The question here really is, do the circumstances of this episode entitle us to infer that the SDP has, by its inaction and other conduct, made a positive assertion of fact in respect of our judiciary?

By a letter of 8th September 1995, Dr Chee informed the Prime Minister that he intended to present the SDP's alternative ideas for Singapore at the counter panel discussion at Williams College, and sought a meeting with the Prime Minister. In his reply, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary assailed Dr Chee's motives for agreeing to be a party to that discussion. In particular, the Press Secretary said, and I quote, "Your desire to see the Prime Minister in Williams College does not prove your commitment to Singapore." In a press statement issued on 10th September 1995 on SDP's notepaper, Dr Chee signing off as Secretary-General, stated that the SDP's participation "is to clear any misperceptions that anyone may have about Singapore". That is one of the most important statements that has been made by Dr Chee and the SDP in this episode. I repeat it: "to clear any misperceptions that anyone may have about Singapore". That statement, which was carried in the Straits Times on the following day, was made specifically in response to a challenge to SDP's commitment to Singapore. Dr Chee and the SDP attempted to dispel the notion that they are anti-Singaporean by promising to clear any misperceptions about Singapore. In other words, to defend Singapore against unjustified attack.

In the circumstances, Dr Chee and the SDP expressly represented to Singaporeans that if, in SDP's view, any unjustified allegations against Singapore are made at the counter panel discussion, he and the SDP would clear the air. Dr Chee and the SDP therefore voluntarily undertook, and assumed a duty, to all Singaporeans to defend our system if it came in for what, in their view, was baseless criticism, and to take a stand.

At the discussion, Mr Seow disparaged the judiciary, the legal system, and the rule of law in Singapore. The SDP was represented by three persons, including its Secretary-General and Vice-Chairman. But Dr Chee and his two colleagues were conspicuously silent on this attack. There was no rebuttal either at the discussion or in Dr Chee's speech the following day.

In Dr Chee's and SDP's view, Mr Seow's claim that our judiciary is corrupt was either a misperception or it was not. If it was a misperception, Dr Chee and the SDP were under a duty, and had undertaken, to Singaporeans to speak up to clarify the matter. They remained silent when Mr Seow discredited our legal system. Their failure to refute the criticisms of our judiciary is consistent only with one conclusion: that the SDP and Dr Chee did not consider it to be a misperception. In other words, they considered that Mr Seow had a legitimate basis to discredit and run down our judiciary.

It is important that we give SDP the benefit of the doubt. There are other possible interpretations of SDP's failure to rebut Mr Seow's claims. First, that the SDP was so caught up in the discussion at Williams College that it forgot to clear up the misperception. Secondly, that Dr Chee disagreed with Mr Seow but was too diffident to clear the air. Let me deal with each in turn.

First, was there an oversight? The SDP's conduct before, during and after the event militates against any such interpretation. Well before Williams College, in a letter published in the Straits Times on 12th August 1995, Dr Ow asked Dr Chee to state whether he disagreed with the views of Mr Safire who had labelled our judiciary "corrupt". Dr Chee avoided dealing with this in his reply.

At Williams College, Dr Chee did not once suggest that Mr Seow's views on the system in Singapore was a misperception. He did not do so at the counter panel discussion or during his speech the following day. Remember that, according to Dr Chee, one of the purposes of attending the counter panel discussion at Williams College was to address misperceptions about Singapore.

After Williams College, Dr Chee and the SDP had many opportunities to clear up this possible misperception, this time, on the part of the PAP, about SDP's stand on the judiciary. After Dr Chee returned to Singapore, Dr Ow challenged him to state his stand about Mr Seow's attack on our judiciary. Dr Ow's letter was published in the Straits Times on 21st September 1995. Dr Ow reminded Dr Chee that during the counter panel discussion, Dr Chee had said that he and his party faced some of the constraints which Mr Seow talked about. Here was an excellent opportunity for Dr Chee to clear the air and to take a stand. Dr Chee, replying as Secretary-General of the SDP, chose not to address the issue. In fact, he and the SDP repeated that the SDP was at Williams College "to clear up misperceptions foreigners might have about our country". There was no doubt in their own minds about their mission.

What about the other possible interpretation of Dr Chee's conduct? Was he too reticent to rebut Mr Seow? Again, this is not at all a reasonable inference for the simple reason that Dr Chee has himself claimed that he "will speak forthrightly concerning matters about my country". He said this in the Straits Times of 27th September 1995. Here is the Secretary-General of a party saying that he will not mince words when it concerns an issue affecting Singapore. It is therefore impossible, on any view, to conclude that Dr Chee and the SDP were coy about setting the record straight.

What then is the only inference which can be drawn? The SDP by its own claim has said, not once, but twice, that one of its objectives in attending the counter panel discussion was to put right misperceptions about Singapore. And yet, in the face of Mr Seow's charge, and despite many opportunities to clarify, not only has the SDP maintained a silence about the integrity of our judiciary, Dr Chee has not once resiled from his assertion that "I agree very much with many things that Mr Seow and Dr Lingle have said." That remains his and the SDP's stand up till today.

The SDP had another opportunity to clear up the misperception, if it believed that Mr Seow's views on our system were without basis. On 10th October 1995, the Straits Times published a letter from the Prime Minister's Press Secretary. In that letter, Dr Chee was asked to clarify his position regarding the independence of our judiciary in the light of Mr Seow's allegations. Dr Chee's reply was published on 17th October 1995. The reply was issued in his capacity as Secretary-General of the SDP. Again, the SDP refused to deal with the issue. There is not one word in that letter which clarifies the position, one way or the other.

It is not necessary to make a positive assertion of fact to endorse or support an attack. Where, as here, a political party and its Secretary-General assume a duty, indeed undertake, to defend Singapore against unfair criticisms, but remain silent in the face of an assault on our judiciary, and indeed declare agreement with many things that Mr Seow has said, the irresistible conclusion must be that SDP's silence and conduct amount to a clear and unequivocal endorsement of that attack.

I shall now deal with the second issue, which is, is there any basis for the attack? The allegations which Mr Seow made are in essence:

(1) That the judiciary is beholden to the [Senior Minister] and the establishment.

(2) That the Chief Justice is a "faithful crony" of the Senior Minister.

(3) That the "judges are invariably leaning over backwards in favour of the Government and the establishment."

The hallmark of an independent judiciary is its ability to decide in accordance with the law without fear or favour and without regard to the identity or standing of the parties. Are our courts independent? Let us test the point by a few examples.

Mr Seow has claimed that Chief Justice Yong was appointed because he was a "faithful crony" and that the "rule of Lee has displaced the rule of law in Singapore". Consider this. In 1990, Mr Jeyaretnam filed an appeal to the Court of Appeal against a decision of the High Court. The other party was the Senior Minister. The Senior Minister applied to strike out one of Mr Jeyaretnam's grounds of appeal. The Court of Appeal dismissed the Senior Minister's application and awarded costs against the Senior Minister. Presiding were the Chief Justice, Justice L P Thean and Justice Chan Sek Keong, who is now the Attorney-General. Ask yourselves: Is the Chief Justice "a faithful crony"? Would the Court have so ruled if it was beholden to the Senior Minister or was corrupt?

Mr Seow has also claimed "that judges are invariably leaning over backwards in favour of Government and the establishment". A foreign company which wanted to buy land in Singapore had given undertakings to the Controller of Housing not to sell that land. Those undertakings were secured by bank guarantees. The company granted options over the land conditional on the purchaser obtaining the necessary qualifying certificate to purchase the land. The Controller took the view that the grant and acceptance of the options amounted to a breach of the undertakings which gave him ground to forfeit the guarantees. He forfeited $7.8 million. The company appealed to the Minister for Law who referred it to the Ministry of National Development which disallowed the appeal. The Government chose to retain the $7.8 million. The company went to court. The Court of Appeal ordered the Government to return the $7.8 million with interest and costs. Is this an example of a court which leans over backwards for the Government and the establishment?

These are only illustrations. We should therefore ask ourselves why is it that those who discredit our judges choose to ignore such decisions. This House must demand that the SDP, indeed anyone wishing to make out a case against the judiciary, satisfy two tests: first, to show that the decisions in favour of the Government, the Senior Minister and the Prime Minister are so perverse that they cannot be justified on any view of the law. In that connection, the SDP must explain why is it that in some of those cases, the Privy Council has upheld the decisions of our Court of Appeal. The second test that the SDP has to satisfy is to demonstrate how the allegations against the judiciary are consistent with the fact that courts in Singapore have ruled against the Government.

The fact that SDP Members of Parliament were not at Williams College is, with respect, irrelevant. In all the material press statements and letters published in connection with this affair, Dr Chee has used the SDP notepaper, or signed off as Secretary-General of the party, or both. In his letter of 8th September 1995 to the Prime Minister he said that he would put the SDP's alternative ideas of Singapore. In his 10th September 1995 press statement, he confirms that it is SDP which will participate at the counter panel discussion and that it is SDP's objective to clear any misperceptions. Dr Chee, as Secretary-General, was clearly authorised to issue the letters and statements on behalf of the party. Therefore, SDP was at Williams College and is in this House. More significantly, two of SDP's Members of Parliament are members of the bar. They are in a better position than Dr Chee to comment on the judiciary.

The SDP Members of Parliament have the following options in the face of this motion: they can either expressly repudiate their present endorsement for Mr Seow's views or they can maintain their support for his claims in which case they are duty bound to justify the basis of the criticism. 4.00 pm

The Senior Minister (Mr Lee Kuan Yew): Mr Speaker, Sir, from 1959 to 1990, I was responsible for appointing all Judges of the Supreme Court. Like all my other appointments throughout the Government, the statutory boards, the civil service, these Judges were appointed strictly on merit. The main attributes that I looked for were integrity, ability, qualifications and suitability for the job. If I had indulged in nepotism and cronyism, Singapore would not be what it is today, with a government, civil service, a police force, a whole structure of an establishment which is acknowledged, not just by businessmen but even by foreign correspondents who do not much favour us, to be 'squeaky clean' - in other words, honest, efficient and fair, where rules cannot be circumvented by gifts, and money politics does not exist.

When appointments are for life, as with Judges, I take the utmost care to make sure that the men and women to be appointed do not fail for lack of character, integrity or independence of mind and judgement, for having been appointed for life, they will become serious problems with effects on our social development and our economic growth.

Sir, I appointed the first Singaporean Chief Justice of Singapore in 1963. The person I appointed, Mr Justice Wee Chong Jin, was already a High Court Judge appointed by a previous Governor, and he held his appointment by Letters Patent from the British Queen. So his qualification to be a judge was not based on my criteria but on the Governor's criteria in the days before elected governments. I elevated him from the Bench to the Chief Justiceship. He stayed on as Chief Justice from 1963 to 1990. Many judgements went against the Government. He was never removed. He reached retirement age; I extended it twice because there was no suitable alternative.

I had planned to resign as Prime Minister at the end of 1990. One of my most important last appointments before I retired was to appoint the Chief Justice to succeed Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin. I weighed the merits of several candidates. I discussed the matter with all the Judges, separately. Each of the Judges listed for me the three best persons he considered suitable for the office, always excluding himself. With each Judge I separately went through the list of members of the Singapore Bar. I considered several outstanding lawyers from the Malaysian Bar, and looked at a few possibles elsewhere, including Hong Kong. I re-discussed the matter with the four judges who knew Mr Yong Pung How well. They all rated him the best of the possibles, excluding themselves. They were: Mr A P Rajah, Mr Punch Coomaraswamy, Mr L P Thean, and Mr S K Chan. Finally, there were four Judges of the Supreme Court who knew him and knew all the other Judges and knew all the members of the Bar who were suitable for the job. And without hesitation, they said that this man, in their view, was the most suitable.

I finally decided on Yong Pung How because I was going to make an offer to a man who was at the top of the Singapore banking community. We were fellow students for three years at the Cambridge Law School from 1946 - 50 years ago. I knew his quality of work and his meticulous standards, and I knew them well. I had borrowed his lecture notes for my first term in 1946 in Cambridge because I had missed them. I had gone off to the London School of Economics and missed the first term when I decided to change from London to Cambridge. He returned and practised law both in Malaysia and Singapore for 20 years. In 1970 when he was already the head of one of the largest law firms in both countries (Singapore and Malaysia), Shook Lin and Bok, which had been started by his father, himself a lawyer, he decided to leave the law for banking. He became the head of the merchant bank, SIMBL, and later a Director and Vice-Chairman of our largest local bank, the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC).

In April 1981 Dr Goh Keng Swee, then doing a special job for me to form the Government Investment Corporation (GIC) - and he had Mr Lim Kim San as the first Managing Director - decided to ask OCBC to lend Yong Pung How to the Government Investment Corporation as Managing Director. He had known him separately as a banker. Later he became also Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore because his competence was beyond doubt.

As Chairman, GIC, I could see from his work that he was the same Yong Pung How I had known as a student: thorough, meticulous, and scrupulously fair in his presentation of the alternatives for investment projects before expressing his preferences. That is a very important quality for a judge. He had his preferences, but he presented the various options scrupulously and fairly, so that if the Board decided to take a different view from him they could pursue the merits, in detail, of the other options. In June 1983 he left both GIC and MAS and returned to OCBC as Chairman.

Sir, in 1976 I had offered him an appointment as a Judge of the Supreme Court. He was then Vice-Chairman of OCBC. He declined. In 1989, when I asked him to consider the office of Chief Justice, telling him that this was my last appointment before my retirement, he asked for time to consider it. If he agreed, he would have to take up an appointment as Judge of the Supreme Court for a year before he took up his appointment as Chief Justice.

Sir, as Chairman of OCBC, in the first six months of 1989 he earned $1.3 million from his salary, bonuses, and pay in lieu of leave. In other words, if he had stayed on in OCBC, he would have earned $2.6 million for the whole of 1989. The previous year, 1988, he had earned $1.3 million; because it was a less prosperous year for the bank with smaller bonuses. These were cash payments, excluding his entitlements to share options. As a Judge of the Supreme Court, he would receive, and, in fact, did receive, for the second six months of 1989 the princely sum of $0.177 million ($177,000) - less than one-seventh of his OCBC remuneration for the first six months.

He considered it carefully for a month and told me that he would accept the appointment. He left OCBC and was appointed a Judge of Supreme Court on 1st July 1989. In September 1990 when Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin retired, I appointed him Chief Justice.

Mr Yong Pung How's integrity, ability and standing were already well established amongst bankers both in Singapore and internationally. He is not an unknown person, like Mr Francis Seow. He is known to people who deal in billions of dollars of investments, as a man of honour. And in London, he is amongst London bankers a respected figure. In the last five years, he has earned the respect of the Bar, not as my friend, but as the Chief Justice. More than 200 of his judgements in the last five years have been published in our law reports. They are there for all to read and to judge. It is absurd for anyone to suggest that a man would give up his position as Chairman of our largest bank, earning more than $2.6 million a year, to become a compliant Chief Justice for less than one-fifth the salary.

He undertook the job as a matter of duty. Of course, money did not matter to him so much because he had inherited some properties from his parents and so was not deterred by the loss of income as a banker. However, Singapore cannot in future depend on finding a Chief Justice who happens to be good and bedecked with ability, integrity and judicial temperament who also happens to have inherited properties from his parents. Hence, I urged upon the Prime Minister the need for a fundamental revision of salaries from the President downwards, including the Chief Justice, the Judges and the civil servants, so that they are now earning 60% of their market earnings, of their peers in the private sector and, in the longer term, two-thirds of their market earnings.

If Singapore is to remain squeaky clean when that revolutionary generation that threw me and my colleagues up cannot be reproduced, this is the only way. Face the alternatives and we will avoid the discomfiture of many other countries. We are not South Korea, we are not the Philippines, we are not Taiwan, we are not Thailand. They are the countries lauded by the American press as examples for us. I shudder to think that Singapore travels that road. Because unlike them, we do not have that hinterland to pay for such excesses.

Every time your constituent asks you, why should the Minister be paid so much, tell him the Minister handles in billions of dollars. One signature from the Minister can make or break a company, not just a man. Therefore, he must be a man of that quality, that standing, that integrity. And if he is not worth 60% of what his private sector counterparts are getting, he should not be holding that job. Settle for Francis Seow or Dr Chee Soon Juan - all you need do is to pay for his wife's postage to send the PhD thesis for correction. It is cheap.

I have never needed the Courts to deal with troublesome problems which I can deal with by executive decision under the law. As Prime Minister, I reserved executive powers in the Internal Security Act and the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act, both inherited from British times, which I did not repeal, in order to be able to act against subversives or criminals like drug traffickers, against whom there is insufficient evidence for a court of law, without having recourse to the courts. In other words, I was my own carrier of a hatchet. I needed no hatchet man. All those who have dealt with me know that I have never flinched from going into a dark street on a dark night and if it happens to be a cul-de-sac, no outlet, either the gangster or I will come out alive. I have done this a few times. I am prepared to do this again.

But when the Government, including me, takes a matter to court or when the Government is taken by private individuals to court, then the court must adjudicate upon the issues strictly on their merits and in accordance with the law. To have it otherwise is to lose us our standing and to lose us our status as an investment and financial centre. Fortune magazine is owned by Time Warner. We have restricted Time magazine for refusing to publish our replies. We are no favourites of Time Warner. But they carried out two independent surveys and they rated Singapore No. 1 investment centre.

The interpretation of documents, of contracts in accordance with the law is crucial. Our reputation for the rule of law has been and is a valuable economic asset, part of our capital, although an intangible one. It has brought to Singapore good returns from the MNCs, the OHQs, the banks, the financial institutions, and the flood of capital to buy up properties in Singapore. A country that has no rule of law, where the government acts capriciously is not a country wealthy men from other countries would sink money in in real estate.

Sir, one of the difficulties of getting good men on the Supreme Court was the meagre salaries paid to judges compared to their earnings at the Bar. And it was only in recent years, after the Ministerial and Judicial salaries were revised, that it has been possible to fill the vacancies on the Supreme Court Bench with men and women of the right quality. Most of the appointments to the Bench have been from the private practice because many in the Government service had left when the pay was grossly inadequate.

The Government is therefore presently revising Legal Service salaries so that the Service will be able to retain good officers who can, in due course, be promoted to the Bench, and we can maintain a balance between Judges and Judicial Commissioners promoted from the Legal Service and those appointed from private practice.

How has the present Chief Justice filled up the vacancies? He has combed through the Bar list before he made recommendations to the Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong, for 10 appointments as members of the Supreme Court Bench and eight as Judicial Commissioners. Some were appointed to the Supreme Court after a term as Judicial Commissioner. He has been careful, meticulous and thorough in his selections.

When he became a Judge in July 1989, he met a large cross section of lawyers, leading members of the Bar. He found out who were the highly respected. From these discussions, he settled a list of 60 possibles, both from the Legal Service and the Bar. Within a year, before he became Chief Justice, he had shortlisted them to 20. He based his selection on the academic background of the person, what the market and the Bar assessed a man to be, and from his knowledge of and conversations with the person, including his appearance before him in the courts. He then sought out the views of each of the Judges and the Judicial Commissioners on the overall integrity, legal ability and likely "judicial temperament" of these persons. Then he sounded out the candidate as to whether he would be interested to have his name considered.

From 1992, he refined the selection process by a quiet poll every 12 to 15 months. Each Judge and each Judicial Commissioner would list three lawyers in order of preference, for their competence in civil work and, separately, in a different list for competence in criminal work. The Judges had the advantage of close observation and interaction with those who appeared before them, and also from their personal knowledge of their peers when they were practising at the Bar. From these rankings, the Chief Justice obtained a rough assessment based on how many Judges and Judicial Commissioners nominated a particular candidate, and also a more precise points score, giving three points for a first place nomination, two for a second place nomination and one for a third. Then he assessed the suitability of each candidate in separate discussions.

The Chief Justice used the same method to select the judges he recommended for appointment to the Court of Appeal. Each Judge and Judicial Commissioner named two of themselves they considered the most suitable for promotion to this senior appointment, with a third name in reserve. The two who are appointed were the unanimous choices of all the judges.

These appointments to the Supreme Court, and the changes the Chief Justice has made in the administration of the courts in the last five years, have raised the morale, efficiency and effectiveness of the officers of our courts. The transformation has been nothing short of remarkable. Our courts have been brought up to date with the use of Information Technology. The large backlog of cases when we used to wait four, five, six years for trial whilst they were on the court's list, has been cleared. The courts can now keep pace with the work volume of a financial centre like Singapore. The lawyers know the judiciary has come from the best amongst their ranks. They know who has been chosen. They have dealt with them either as partners or as adversaries in the courts. Now the lawyers complain of the pace of work in the courts and it is they who want time to catch up with their work, which is as it should be.

These facts, Sir, have to be placed on the record. When Members read Human Rights groups in America, foreign correspondents who quote these Human Rights groups and their reports, or opposition parties seeking to attack the Government, by attacking the Judiciary, remember that they are out on a campaign to debase our system. They are not interested in investigating the truth. They are carrying out a campaign. Remember that the Singapore Chief Justice and Singapore's Judges on the Supreme Court have established reputations and enjoy the respect of the Bar. Otherwise, the World Economic Forum and PERC would not have come to that conclusion. They canvass, they poll, they meet lawyers, they meet businessmen, to find out whether they have got confidence in the system.

The Chief Justice has not given up his Chairmanship of OCBC in order to debase himself and become a hatchet man for the Government. And in any case, as I have said, I was always my own hatchet man. I have never needed somebody to carry my scabbard for me.

He has discharged the duties of his office with distinction, and he has helped to select for the Supreme Court some of the best and most respected members of the Bar. All those connected with the administration of justice, the legal officers, members of the Bar and there are now over 2,500 members, lawyers in actual practice, the judges, the media, meaning our media and indeed even the foreign media, although they may not wish to report this, watch the Leeson case. When he attacked Singapore and said that he did not want to be extradited because he would not get a fair trial, the International Herald Tribune and the Asian Wall Street Journal plastered it on the front page. When Leeson decided that he would face trial in Singapore and said he apologised for saying that he never had confidence in the Singapore judiciary, not one word was published, not even in the inside pages. Freedom of the press! Are we intimidated?

The Judges and Judicial Commissioners who have been appointed since November 1990 by the present Prime Minister on the recommendation of the Chief Justice have brought credit to the Singapore Bench. They have maintained the high standards established by the few who had accepted appointment when salaries were inadequate, and who had been holding the fort until salary changes made it possible to get larger numbers of practising lawyers to accept appointments. I may add that rather than appoint lawyers who were not amongst the best at the Bar, I deliberately left the vacancies on the Supreme Court Bench unfilled. Because it was not in my nature and I knew it would be unwise to fill up those seats with inadequate men. They were lifetime appointments.

I am happy to observe that our Judges have not been intimidated by the baseless attacks on their integrity from the foreign media, from doing what their conscience and the law requires of them as Judges. Their conduct of cases in open court, their judgments published for the record, their character all bear the closest scrutiny. If it was nonsensical, absurd, preposterous, if Dr Lingle had not committed contempt of court and the IHT had been wrongly convicted, they would have torn the judgments to strips. There were arguments in open court on both sides by the Attorney-General and lawyers amongst the best from the Singapore Bar and they could have brought in Queen's Counsel from London. And if the judgments could not justify the findings, then the judgments would have been torn to strips.

So what is all this about? From time to time since 1987, American Human Rights groups, like Asiawatch and through Asiawatch, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, have made baseless and scurrilous allegations that our judiciary is not independent. It all started in 1987 over the Marxist conspirators' arrest, when we were not intimidated by their attacks on us for using the Internal Security Act. We refused to yield. So they went on a vendetta and a crusade. They got the American Bar Association of the City of New York to come here and did a cursory talk around and came out with a report. So we are intimidated?

Now, the SDP, through its Secretary General, Dr Chee Soon Juan, has endorsed these allegations, cleverly using - so he thought - what Francis Seow and Christopher Lingle said at the alternative panel discussion at Williams College. He did not utter these words. He just happened to be present. But he denied other things which were untrue like chewing gum with a $1,000 fine or smoking marijuana carrying the death penalty. That is untrue. There is a Latin tag which says expressio unius est exclusio alterius. When you list out the items which you say are untrue, by implication, all the others are true, because you have brought your mind to bear on it. The trouble with him is that he is too clever by half. He always forgets what he said in his last letter.

But it is not Dr Chee we are beating up. We are beating up, in the argument, the people who want to make use of him. Can he change this system? Is he ever likely to get an alternative group of men to put forward to Singapore a shadow cabinet that the people could vote in? Is anybody of any quality joining him since his hunger strike in 1993?

Who then are we bugging? American Human Rights groups, the American media who think that we ought to change. We have succeeded by the free market system which they espoused. We have benefitted from the system of laws, the stability which they have ensured. Therefore, we must be the ideal development country. We should not deviate and form a different kind of system. They want the whole of Asia, and eventually the whole of the world, to be ideal societies like them. They argue, they fight, they contend. They have marches where the blacks gathered in Washington, one million strong, and demand justice for all the horrors inflicted upon the blacks for hundreds of years. That is democracy.

We prefer to approach our problems in a different way. We have our difficulties. We have our minorities who lag behind. We do not deny it. But our solution is to solve it in a realistic way, not by argument and debate. We will end up in riots. If Utusan Melayu and Lianhe Zaobao everyday agitate for their particular cause, would we be here to debate and discuss these things with such academic calm? Those of you too young should look at the footage of film clips, long before video, of how a picture of a Dutch girl who had been converted into Islam, sent by a British judge to a convent pending a custody suit between the adopted mother and real mother, a Dutch woman and a Malay woman, caused a riot in which the Singapore Police Force, which was largely Malays, was inert for 72 hours, and British troops had to come down from Malaya to restore law and order.

But we are authoritarian. When we do this, we are like the dictatorships, just slightly better. As Dr Chee says, we are not as bad as the Soviet Union. I am grateful.

They are not going to retreat because they want us to change. If we are going to change for the better, I would say we would be stupid to stay put. Will we change for the better? As the Prime Minister said in his National Day Rally speech, let us give 10 years. In fact, we may know even earlier, in five years, whether the course taken by the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, of a free rambunctious press where anything goes, brings about enlightenment and progress. Or whether our more sedate but truthful presentation of news and facts, without stirring up emotions, leads to more rational conclusions about what we should do for ourselves in the future.

If we were a crook outfit, a rogue outfit, if in fact the Chief Justice is a crony of mine and all the Judges are his cronies who will do his bidding, would we bring this debate into this House and air it? We will be hiding in a corner. But the appointments made can bear scrutiny. What have we to be ashamed of? I am not ashamed of Singapore. I am not ashamed for having arrested Francis Seow or sanctioning his arrest under ISA to discover and confirm that an American diplomat had egged him on to get a group of lawyers to contest the elections and get into Parliament and break up the monopoly of the PAP.

He did that in the Philippines. He proudly told our Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials how he helped Mrs Aquino to get into power. Good luck to the Philippines and Mrs Aquino, but do not do this in Singapore. We have managed our own business. We have not done so badly. We are making progress. Please leave us alone. Our people are not stupid. When they vote, they know that if they vote wrongly, and they really vote out the PAP Government and vote in the Opposition, what would happen to them. I think it is perfectly legitimate for the PAP Government to say the choice is yours. But they want us to follow their system where every step you take is contested and contended. The US President cannot pass his Budget because the House of Representatives says they want to cut some $350 billion to trim the Budget. The President cannot appoint 17 or 18 Ambassadors because the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has decided to hold all appointments hostage until there is a cut in certain items which he desires. So the PLO is unable to get $500 million. This is from the latest news I was listening to on BBC at lunch time. They have to close down their offices. Every day is a tussle between American sumo wrestlers in the legislative arena. America has survived on that contention. But I suggest to this House that we do a lot better because we are differently constituted.

I am convinced that at the end of 10 years we will be doing a lot better despite all the troubles we will get from Asiawatch, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, or the Harvard Law School giving a postal address for Francis Seow. You may impress Americans with that postal address, but you have not changed the nature of Francis Seow and who he is and what he is with Singaporeans. So I have noted with great interest that Dr Chee distanced himself with Francis Seow. He did not go on with him on the same platform. He wanted to keep his distance. He did not want to be treated like Francis Seow. He knows that that carries no credits, no votes, in Singapore. If Francis Seow were a Nelson Mandela, how different it would be. We have invited him, the Prime Minister in his letter through the Ambassador, to come back. We want him back, face his charges, maximum a few months' jail. A fighter for freedom to change the whole system, intimidated by a few months' jail, which will make him into a martyr and rally the masses behind him to overthrow the system? Instead, he sends little letters to the press from the safety and refuge of America.

I believe we must expect this to continue and we will do well every time we read it, and after a while, I believe also that our neighbours have taken note of what has happened, as indeed you can see from the newspapers, editorials from Bangkok, from Jakarta, that when William Safire was invited to Singapore for an open debate, he chose not to come. So was Dr Crane. I had always been under the impression that they were the ones who were for an exchange of views. Who did they want to convince? Williams College students about the future of Singapore? Or Singaporeans about the future of Singapore? That is what is at stake. So let us not forget that in the midst of this debate, we are talking about our future. We are not interested really in how America is run, but we are profoundly interested in whether we are making the right steps forward for ourselves. I believe it is not in our interest to have it said that our judges are compliant and corrupt. [Applause].