When
all legal avenues have been exhausted, the last resort for a criminal sentenced
to death, is to apply for Presidential clemency.
When Singapore gained independence in 1965, the avenue of clemency was embedded into the Singapore Constitution[1].
Although clemency is usually discussed in the
context of capital cases, it is in fact available to any offender for any
offence. The Singapore Constitution
provides that any offender convicted of any offence in Singapore can apply to the
President for a pardon, reprieve or respite, of the execution of any sentence
pronounced on such offender. The President may “on the advice of the Cabinet” grant
clemency in deserving cases. “On the advice of the Cabinet” means that the
President has no personal discretion. The power of clemency is exercised only if the
Cabinet advises it.
The
grant of Presidential clemency from the death sentence is the focus of this
article.
For
criminals sentenced to death, the Singapore Constitution additionally provides
that the President must, once the Court of Appeal has confirmed the death
sentence, call for reports on the conviction to be submitted to the Cabinet to
consider the possibility of commuting the death sentence.[2] So, whether
the condemned prisoner asks for clemency or not, the Cabinet will consider clemency
for such prisoner.
Since
Singapore's independence, only six clemencies against death sentences have
been granted.[3] In each of those six cases, the condemned
prisoners had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
I
have tabulated the details relating to the six Presidential clemencies from
death sentences which have been granted in Singapore, and the table is shown
below.
What
do we see when the number of clemencies granted is compared with the number of
state executions?
Of the
six clemencies granted, three were granted prior to 1991 and three after 1991.
On the
number of criminals hanged since 1965 to 1991, there are no official data. According to Amnesty International, a total
of 21 judicial executions took place in Singapore from 1981 to 1990 [4],
which data a scholar has said “may well under-estimate the true number of
executions during this period since the statistics are usually compiled from
media reports." [5]
As
for the number of criminals hanged since 1991 to 2019, I have tallied 491 judicial
executions took place based on official sources.[6]
As against that toll, two clemencies
against death sentences were granted in 1992 by President Wee Kim Wee and one
in 1998 by President Ong Teng Cheong.
No clemency
from a death sentence was granted by President S R Nathan during his 12-year term
nor by President Tony Tan, and nor by President Halimah Yacob at the time of
writing this article. In any case, the
President has no personal discretion when it comes to granting clemencies. His role is ceremonial.
Incidentally,
in 2018, President Halimah Yacob granted clemency to a convicted murderer who
was sentenced to "detention at the President’s pleasure".[7] Detained at the President’s pleasure means to
be imprisoned indefinitely until the offender is deemed to be suitable for
release. The man was 15 years old when
he committed and was convicted of murder in 2001. Because of his age when he committed the
murder, his identity was sealed. Being
below 18 at the time of conviction, he was spared the death penalty and was
instead sentenced to be detained at the President’s pleasure in accordance with
Singapore’s criminal laws then.
As
for clemencies from the death sentence, since 1998 to now, there have been
none.
One
scholar has opined: “Based on data from 1991 to 2016, excepting jurisdictions
where ‘clemency procedures are either absent or exist only on paper’ (such as
China and Japan), Singapore may well possess one of the world’s lowest clemency
rates among retentionist nations, at less than 1 per cent of finalized cases.” [8]
Jeannette
Chong-Aruldoss is a practising lawyer in Singapore of more than 30 years’
standing.
24
February 2021
[1] Article
22P of the Singapore Constitution
[2] Article
22P(2) of the Singapore Constitution
[3] ‘Last Chance for Life: Clemency in Southeast Asian Death Penalty Cases’, Daniel Pascoe 2019, at p. 95.
[4] Johnson,
D. T. (2013), ‘The jolly hangman, the jailed journalist, and the decline of
Singapore’s death penalty’, Asian Journal of Criminology, 8:54.
[5] Chan
Wing Cheong (2016), 'The Death Penalty in Singapore: In Decline but Still Too
Soon for Optimism', Asian Journal of Criminology, 11: 181, Footnote 10
[6] How
many has Singapore hanged from the gallows?’, Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss (22 Feb
2021) at https://jeannettechongaruldoss.medium.com/
[7]
‘Teen who killed Anthony Ler's wife gets clemency after 17 years in jail,’ The
Straits Times, 13 December 2018
[8] ‘Last
Chance for Life: Clemency in Southeast Asian Death Penalty Cases’, Daniel
Pascoe 2019, at p. 96.
