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EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH PRIME MINISTER LEE

KUAN YEW BY MR LUDOVIC KENNEDY OF THE BBC

5 Mar 1977

KENNEDY: And yet, Prime Minister, when one talks about

justice in Singapore you have in fact abolished trial by jury.

PRIME MINISTER: Yes. Since 1969, and weve had far better
administration of the criminal law and justice. You see, the Anglo-Saxon
tradition of trial by jury may be good for Anglo-Saxons or the descendants
thereof. It never really worked for non Anglo-Saxons.

KENNEDY: Why not?

PRIME MINISTER: I dont know many reasons. The French dont

have it. They are Latin. I think the idea of 12 random jurors sitting there and
deciding whether you ought to go to jail or not or whether you ought to pay
damages or not, its completely alien.

And I never forget my first case when I was

assigned to defend four murderers. Remember the famous jungle girl case in
Singapore in 1950-51?

KENNEDY: I just remember the name.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, a Dutch woman was running away from the
Japanese, gave her daughter to a Malay woman to look after. She came back
after the War, reclaimed the daughter. The Chief Justice, then an Englishman,
pending hearing of the case, sent the girl who had been converted into Islam to a
convent to be looked after, and hell broke loose. The Police force mutinied.
Malays and Muslims took out their knives and a lot of white men, just because
they're white, nothing to do with the case, were killed. These four men were
accused of killing an RAF officer and his wife and child. They were travelling
on a bus from RAF Changi down to town. I was assigned I had no choice. My
job was not to ask them whether they were guilty or not because I knew what the
position was and so did they. All I did and it was my first case was to work
on the weaknesses of the jury their biases, their prejudices, their reluctance,
really, to find four Mussulmen, guilty of killing in cold blood or in a heat of
great passion, religious passion, an RAF officer, his wife and child. I did the
simple tricks of advocacy contradictions between one witness and another,
contradiction between a witness and his previous statement to the police and the
preliminary enquiry and a long submission to the judge, the four were
acquitted. The judge was thoroughly disgusted. I went home feeling quite sick

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because I knew Id discharged my duty as required of me, but I knew I had done
wrong. I decided when we became the government, we will not allow this
foolish, completely incongruous system which will never take root here, because
no juror will take upon himself the onus of saying, Yes, he will go to jail.

KENNEDY: Prime Minister, what do you say to the fact that

some people have been detained in prison here for something like 13 years
without trial. Is that justice?

PRIME MINISTER: It is outside the laws of the courts. Its legislation

which the British passed when they were faced with a communist insurgency a
revolt. Same laws, the same ones, I suspect, is now in operation in Ulster. There
are three of them you are right 13 years since 1963, really coming on to 14.
Two of them are doctors. I defended them for sedition when we were fighting
the British together. I brought out the most ferocious sedition trial QC then at the
British Bar Dennis Pritt. We became great friends. He was a communist or
sympathiser a Marxist; I wasnt. I learnt a lot of the tricks of the trade,
including how to lose in a controlled manner ones temper or pretend to. How to
put up a specious argument a sound, solid law, and we got them off, between
him and us. And the two doctors know that all they have to do is to say, I
denounce the use of armed force to overthrow the government and therefore do
not support the Malayan Communist Party in their attempt to do so, and they
will be released.

KENNEDY: Are you saying that in ...?

PRIME MINISTER: And they refused to do that.

KENNEDY: But are you saying, Prime Minister, in a strong

and prosperous society that you have here now in Singapore the last election
you won the biggest victory ever, you got all the seats in Parliament that if you
release these three people that you couldnt contain them?

PRIME MINISTER: No, thats not the point. We can release these three
people. We released one Dr. Poh Soo Kai, as a trial to see what would happen.
We released him in 1972 after we won the last elections with nearly as good a
majority 69% of the electorate. And what did he do? He gave medicine and
treated a known, wanted, injured terrorist. There is now evidence by a lawyer, at
present under interrogation, who has gone up to a Magistrate and made a
confession, on his own. Now, we have to get him struck off the rolls. But thats
not all. He also gave large quantities of antibiotics and other essential medical
supplies to couriers, to send them to terrorist forces in the jungle, all in the
course of the four years he was out from 1972 to 1976.

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KENNEDY: So these other two will have to stay there,

forever?

PRIME MINISTER: No.

KENNEDY: Until they sign your documents?

PRIME MINISTER: No, they dont have to sign a document. All they
say: I denounce the use of force. I do not support the Malayan Communist
Party in their use of force to overthrow the government. But if they believe, as I
think they do, that this is inevitable, that there will one day be a great victory
parade and they will be on the rostrum where all the local Lenins and Maos will
be well, then they stand firm on principle and wait for tomorrow. I am offering
them another alternative: go to any country thats willing to accept you. I am not
trading. I am not doing a Chilean exchange with the Russians. You are free to
go. They are good doctors, well-trained. You need them for your medical help. I
would let them go and help you relieve your shortage of doctors with no
conditions whatsoever.

But if I allow them here to go out and feed

medicine, treat injured terrorists, slip supplies into the jungle apart from the
trouble I am creating for myself, I think the Malaysian Government will take a
very dim view of my cooperation in joint security problems.

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