There is a maxim in law “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”.1 This comes from the case R v Sussex Justices [1924] KB 256, in which a motorist was involved in a road accident which resulted in their being sued. One of the solicitors acting for the claimant was also a clerk to the justices deciding the case. Despite affidavits from the justices swearing that the clerk in question was not consulted in reaching the decision, and despite the fact that Lord Hewart accepted that the justices had not been unduly influenced by the clerk, the mere appearance of conflict was enough for the conviction to be quashed.

If I haven’t already bored everyone away with this legal talk, the point I’m trying to make is that it is the duty of public servants to not only avoid conflicts of interest2, but the mere appearance of conflict must be avoided if one thinks that maintaining trust in public institutions is a good thing. And it is a good thing, one just needs to look to the USA to see what happens when public trust in institutions are eroded: riots and calls for defunding the police, and people who don’t believe that elections were fairly conducted. It is therefore important that any conflict, even the appearance of conflict, is dealt with and removed from any of our public institutions.

Unfortunately the powers that be don’t seem to agree with that, given the recent spate of events. I would argue even if these were not actually conflicts of interest, the mere appearance of conflict should also be prevented. In fact one might think it would be in the best interest of the People’s Action Party (PAP) to prevent these instances of conflict. Not so.

Tin Pei Ling

On the 1st of February, Grab released a statement saying that PAP Member of Parliament (MP) Tin Pei Ling3 had joined them as their Director of Public Affairs and Policy. This immediately raised concerns from the public over potential conflicts of interest, to which she replied that “There is a clear and mutual understanding that my role as a parliamentarian is distinct from my role at Grab. The company has established clear rules of engagement to ensure that any possible conflict of interest will be properly declared and avoided.” Very reassuring. Of course if you say that there won’t be a conflict, of course the conflict does not exist.

Let’s delve into the role and see if there’s any potential conflict of interest. There isn’t any publicly available job description for the Director of Public Affairs and Policy, but I have found a job description for Grab’s Regional Public Affairs and Policy Manager, which I assume reports to the Director. The responsibilities include trying to “advance Grab’s public policy objectives”, which would involve building relationships with stakeholders including “governments” and “policy-makers”. So that would mean that Ms Tin, a member of our government and one of the policy-makers in our country, would be working for Grab in a role that requires her to build relationships with the government and policy-makers to advance Grab’s public policy objectives. On top of that, Ms Tin isn’t just any MP, at the time of her joining Grab, she was chairperson of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Communications and Information, the ministry that is in charge of coming up with policy which regulates “infocomm technology, cyber security, and media sectors”, which Grab conveniently falls into.

As far as I know, the technology from Severance has not yet been invented. It’s impossible to separate what you know into conflict-free spaces in your brain, activating what you need for specific jobs or tasks. What she knows as an MP could give Grab knowledge on upcoming regulation shifts, and her job at Grab could bias her decisions she makes in Parliament. This is not a jab at Ms Tin’s capabilities, it is called being human. It is why judges have to recuse themselves where there is conflict, and even where it is shown that the conflict had no actual effect on the outcome of the decision as in R v Sussex Justices, the mere appearance of conflict was enough to quash a conviction.

The public outcry that later ensued would be enough to change Grab and the PAP’s minds about the appointment, and on the 10th of February less than 2 weeks after initial announcement Ms Tin would be shifted to a new “corporate development” role at Grab. So the people have won, the conflict has been prevented, and justice has prevailed. So why am I still writing about this?

I don’t think that they feel bad because they did anything wrong, I think they feel bad because they got caught. According to the statement by the PAP, the party had not objected in September 2022 when Ms Tin informed them about her new role, but later following public outcry, the party “discussed” the role with Ms Tin again, and this time it suddenly “became clear to the Party” that she would have to “engage with Government ministries and agencies on public policy issues on behalf of Grab”. Either Ms Tin did not inform them of the full scope of her responsibilities, and they did not care enough to press for details, or she did inform them and the party thought that the conflict of interest did not matter, which seems to contravene their “Rules of Prudence”, and the claim that MPs are expected to “recuse themselves as appropriate from decisions, discussions and positions where there is a risk of such a conflict arising”. Whichever the case, it’s not a good look for them: in the first instance the party is incompetent for preventing the conflict; in the second the party allowing this conflict to happen is in direct contravention of their supposed rules. If there were no public outcry over this, Ms Tin would be happily installed in a role which directly conflicts with her duties as an MP.

On the part of Ms Tin, I think it is her responsibility in her capacity as MP to ensure that she does as much as possible to remove herself from positions of conflict. I doubt any reasonable person on hearing the job scope above would say there is no conflict of interest. The fact that Grab has had to establish4 “rules of engagement where Pei Ling should not be advocating for Grab’s interest in her capacity as an MP, and correspondingly, she should also not be advocating for her constituency and party in her work within Grab” and that the PAP said that there could be “challenges in carrying out these responsibilities” is to me a tacit acknowledgement that the conflict does exist. Otherwise why wouldn’t everyone involved say there is no conflict, and provide evidence that there would not be any conflict? So Ms Tin must have known about the conflict, and yet she still decided to take on the job. And it still doesn't seem that she thinks she has done anything wrong, given that in her post she still questions whether the concerns over the apparent conflict of interest was justified.5

On the part of Grab, I don’t blame them, they are a private company and would do anything permitted to gain any sort of competitive advantage, including hiring the chairperson of the GPC of the ministry which oversees their industry regulations and legislation.

All this is of course par for the course for the PAP, whose philosophy can be summed up in this quote from Lee Kuan Yew in his 1986 National Day rally speech:

I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters—who your neighbor is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.

This philosophy carries forward to today: they think they are better than you, that they as your political leaders are actually the elite of society. Why else do they think that they alone can avoid these conflicts of interests? Or that it would be alright to have these conflicts in the first place, as long as nobody calls them out or notices that there might be any potential conflict? These decisions can only be made by people who think they are better than everyone else, and it is this attitude which will cause the erosion of public trust in Singapore’s institutions.

Keppel Corruption Scandal

In 2017, Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd. (KOM) agrees to pay a $422m fine to the governments of the US, Brazil and Singapore to resolve a bribery case in which KOM and its wholly owned subsidiary Keppel Offshore & Marine USA Inc. were found to be involved in a decade long bribery scandal totaling over $50m in bribes resulting in over $350m in profit for KOM.

After investigations into the 6 individuals who were allegedly responsible for the bribes, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in Singapore decides to issue stern warnings in lieu of prosecuting them. The reasons given were that there were “evidentiary difficulties” and key witnesses residing outside Singapore could not be compelled to give testimony.

This immediately raised several questions, especially given that the US was able to induce a plea bargain from Jefferey Chow, one of the six persons involved. The most comprehensive questions raised were in a since deleted6 Singapore Law Watch commentary by Senior Counsel Harpreet Singh Nehal in which he raised the following points:

1. the fact that a corrupt scheme is complex and transnational cannot on its own

   justify non-prosecution, given that modern times most fraud or corruption schemes will be complex and involve foreign elements;

2. there is already a very large amount of evidence of the bribery scheme

   available with KOM which is fully accessible to prosecutors, and this is clear from the admissions in KOM’s agreed statements with the US Department of Justice;

3. the CPIB also has extensive investigative powers over the six former KOM

   senior management staff, who all appear to be within the jurisdiction;

4. advanced digital forensic tools are available to access KOM’s servers and

   the six individuals’ personal mobile devices to collect evidence; and

5. Singapore has recourse to request mutual legal assistance (MLA) from their foreign counterparts under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 2000.

In the 6th February sitting of Parliament, Minister Indranee Rajah gave an explanation as to why the ex-employees were not prosecuted by the Public Prosecutor (PP). The key points of her explanation are as follows:

1. there is a lack of sufficient evidence, either documentary or through witnesses, which would establish any criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt against a specific individual;

2. the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) and CPIB sent three MLA requests to Brazil to secure evidence that was needed. AGC and CPIB also sent an MLA request to another relevant foreign authority to interview other potential material witnesses. And although the contents of the MLA have been deemed confidential, Minister Rajah goes on to say that “they have either not yielded evidence that could be used to secure a conviction before our Courts, or the responses have not been helpful in advancing the case”;

3. the one foreign witness that could be relevant refuses to voluntarily give evidence in Singapore, and neither the AGC nor CPIB can compel him; and

4. the plea bargain of Jeffery Chow is insufficient, also given that on returning to Singapore he denied any knowledge of the bribes, and even if the PP were to submit the plea bargain as evidence it would be given limited weight in the face of contradictory oral testimony.

Point 4 in particular strikes me as extremely weird. Contradictory oral testimony from whom? Considering that the AGC and CPIB have allegedly found no parties willing to give testimony, does this mean contradictory testimony from the defendants? Why would their contradictory testimony hold any weight in that circumstance?

In any case, the most important question that Minister Rajah posed to Parliament, and an offer I’m surprised none of the members took up was this: “I would like to know if any Member thinks that, nevertheless, even without sufficient evidence, the PP should have proceeded to bring charges against individuals, who deny the allegations against them. If so, please let me know and the basis on which you say so.”

In line with the theme of this week, I would say yes, the PP should have brought charges against the individuals. I understand that under Article 35(8) of the Constitution, the PP has the power of prosecutorial discretion. Where there is insufficient evidence, it is often the case the PP should not prosecute, given that it would be a waste of the government’s money, which belongs to the people and has to be used in a responsible manner. I’m quite glad that at least MP Dr Tan Wu Meng pursues this line of inquiry, questioning the PP’s decision not to prosecute. As per a 2012 press release by the AGC, the decision to prosecute is weighed against these factors: sufficiency of evidence, the application of the facts to the law, the sufficiency of investigations and the public interest in prosecuting the individual.

I would argue that the public interest in prosecution in this case outweighs all the other factors, given the theme of this week: justice must be seen to be done. There is a reason that there is considerable public interest surrounding this case, the facts of the case make it so:

1. Consider the fact that KOM is a wholly owned subsidiary of Keppel Corporation, of which Temasek Holdings is a majority shareholder owning 21% of the company, and Temasek Holdings is in turn wholly owned by the Government of Singapore. Is there no public interest in the prosecution of a corruption scandal involving individuals in KOM? I would argue it is in the public’s interest that the case be seen in court where all facts and evidence would be heard publicly, in the interest of transparency and to quash any claims that the Government of Singapore is somehow involved in this scandal as well;

2. Speaking of transparency, a decision to hear this in court would allow the testimonies from the MLAs to be made public record, instead of being kept confidential, having to take the CPIB and AGC at their word that there is insufficient evidence to convict. It would be in the Government’s interest to prove that there is nothing to hide with regard to this, especially given what I have said in (1); and

3. Given that the AGC is part of the Government, and remains an important part of our public institutions, it would be important to maintain public trust in the institution. Bringing charges against the individuals, even if it fails in court, would allow the AGC to maintain that trust of the people, which to me outweighs the cost of any such prosecution.

I am disappointed that no MP brought this argument to Parliament, but I am not surprised. In a Government where transparency has never been a priority of the ruling party, the people will eventually lose trust in our institutions. While trust in government in Singapore remains high, it is beginning to slip in recent years. It doesn’t take many more scandals to break the trust, and the government will do well to preserve what is there.