Tuesday, August 08, 2017

Singapore family feud exposes farce of country’s judicial independence...

The rift within the Lee family over what to do with the grand colonial-style home of Lee Kuan Yew, the patriarch who died in March 2015 at 92, has further exposed the contradictions inherent in Singapore’s system between the appearance of rule of law via an independent judiciary and the perceptions of so many onlookers of favoritism toward the government and the ruling Lee family.

This gap may not have had significant consequences while Lee Kuan Yew’s personality towered over Singapore and carried weight around the world. But it does now, and it is providing a good deal of schadenfreude for the politicians and journalists who over the decades have been forced to knuckle under to the Lees’ version of justice.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s nephew has challenged the system by openly describing the government as “litigious” and the courts as “pliant”in the middle of the increasingly ugly family dispute. For his pains, the 32-year-old Li Shengwu is to be subjected to contempt of court proceedings, according to the office of Singapore’s Attorney General Lucien Wong. Li, the son of the prime minister’s estranged younger brother Lee Hsien Yang, made the remarks from the safety of the United States, where he is a junior fellow at Harvard University. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Singapore PM apologizes for family feud but denies...
  2. Singapore’s Lee family feud rages online...
  3. Singapore's PM at war with sister over Lee Kuan Yew...
  4. Singapore succession a troubling issue...
  5. The storm Amos Yee raised and why it is clouding our judgement...

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