The Age
17 Jul 2008
A REPORT released last week, Prosperity versus Individual Rights? Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Singapore, published by the International Bar Association, provides a fair and balanced account of how Singapore's Government really operates.
It lists 18 recommendations for Singapore to strengthen its rule of law and to better promote a civil society. They are all reasonable, as is the analysis on which they are based.
But of course the Singapore Government doesn't think so. Even though the IBA provided the Singapore Government with a draft of the report, allowed it to comment and then inserted the Government's views in the final report, the Government still managed to diss the report by the end of last week, just as it disses everything remotely critical. Singapore's Government is unique among governments around the world: it doesn't need advice.
>>>> More
