Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Frederick Teo Court Martial Case

The Today newspaper and The Straits Times will publish a follow up on the Frederick Teo case. Do look out for these stories please.

I've been in/out of the office these days. Haven't had time to scan the articles related to the earlier posts. There'll be several major announcements from the IR soon. : )

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

won't paff "block" the news about ltc frederick teo's court-martial?

FinalFive said...

Block the news? No lah, it's all out in the open already. He got a S$6k fine and suspension from his duties in Policy Office.

Never touch SAF woman...

FinalFive said...

Also i think we need to be very clear about the powers of MINDEF/PAFF where it comes to "controlling" the media in court cases.At least to the best of my knowledge the following are true:

MINDEF/PAFF has basically no control over the reporting of court cases. Even the Court Martial Centre does not come under the power of MINDEF. This is because of the separation of powers doctrine - MINDEF, being a government agency, is a part of the Executive, while the courts (including the CMC), are under the Judiciary. Both powers do not overlap. As it is a fundamental principle of justice that justice needs to be SEEN to be done, the public has unrestricted access to the courts.

The exception is where the trial judge believes that issues of national security/public interest are at stake, and disclosure is harmful to such issues. In those cases, the trial is held in camera - Proceedings are closed to the public, and grounds of decisions are kept confidential. MINDEF cannot order a trial to be held in camera, it can only plead for it. The final decision is in the judge's hands.

In any case, whether ST and other agencies carry the news or not, the decision of the court will usually be reported in the Military law Reports or archived - And the public can access such information.

I do not know of any SAF case heard at CMC that has been 'blocked' from reporting. I think the MINDEF position in cases of such bad publicity is that the information is out there, but no help will be extended to let the public know.

Thanks to KC Vijayan, I guess we will know eventually...

Anonymous said...

FinalFive: can you direct me to these military law reports please

FinalFive said...

Sure. Go to national library, level 11. Under the Singapore Law Reports, there's a special portion where books in black are labelled Military Court of Appeal Reports.

Or go MINDEF website, and see the MINDEF legal counsel for their opinions on cases.