Public interest must come before personal beliefs: Shanmugam on the death penalty

Public interest must come before personal beliefs, Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said on Jan 19 in a Facebook post on the death penalty.

“One’s personal beliefs can and will inform one’s views on policy, but in the end, you have to do what is right by society, for the benefit of the community as a whole, regardless of your personal beliefs; to do otherwise would be wrong,” he said.

The post had highlighted the Singapore Government’s considerations on the use of capital punishment in Singapore.

“Removing the death penalty will save the lives of drug traffickers. But it will encourage more people to traffic drugs into Singapore,” said Mr Shanmugam.

“The supply of drugs will undoubtedly rise. And there will be consequences: more serious crime, violence, drug-related deaths. Many more innocent people will die in Singapore, including more innocent young children,” he added.

Mr Shanmugam wrote that he had, in an interview with the BBC in 2024, said that “you need a kind heart but a hard head in public policy”.

“You have to be clear eyed in assessing what the consequences of a policy are. Taking away life is serious; and it does weigh heavily on one’s mind – no one wants to have the death of anyone else on his conscience,” he said.

Mr Shanmugam referenced how US President Joe Biden had commuted the death sentences of 37 inmates before his term ends on Jan 20.

The inmates, who include those convicted of murder, will instead serve life sentences without the possibility of parole.

In his post, Mr Shanmugam said that President Biden had referred to his personal conscience for doing this.

But Mr Shanmugam also pointed to an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Dec 23, which he said “asked some serious questions and exposed serious inconsistencies” in Mr Biden’s reasoning.

The WSJ piece had pointed out that there were some death sentences that Mr Biden had not commuted. This includes Robert Bowers, who was convicted for killing 11 congregants at a synagogue in 2018 and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted over the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

“WSJ made the point about Biden’s personal conscience overriding the law: The prisoners who were pardoned by him had gone through trials, appeals, and were found guilty – beyond reasonable doubt,” Mr Shanmugam wrote.

“And at the same time the inconsistency in President Biden’s actions in allowing the death sentences to stand for some other cases… Why was it ok to pardon some cold-blooded killers, while no pardon was given to other cold-blooded killers?”

Mr Shanmugam said he is often asked about his position on the death penalty, and that his view is that the public interest of Singapore is the primary consideration.

Without the death penalty, more people may be encouraged to traffic drugs into Singapore, he said, leading to consequences including higher crime, violence and drug-related deaths.

“This is the experience of other countries, including developed countries in the West.”

In one example, he said half of all homicides and more than a quarter of illegal firearm seizures in countries within the European Union were linked to drug trafficking.

He also said that every 14 months, more Americans die from fentanyl abuse than from “all of America’s wars combined” since World War II.

In Singapore, he said the Central Narcotics Bureau now arrests about 3,000 drug abusers per year, as compared to about 6,000 in the 1990s.

“All things being equal, this number should have gone up in the last 30 years: the supply of drugs in the region has exploded, our purchasing power has increased significantly, and the international environment is increasingly drug-tolerant,” he added.

Singapore’s tough approach has saved thousands of lives, including potential abusers, victims of crimes that come with drug abuse and their families, Mr Shanmugam said.

“Should the Government remove the death penalty, when we completely believe that doing so would certainly lead to many more people dying – and thousands more lives (including children) harmed in some way, from drugs?” he said.

“As policy makers, we set aside our personal feelings, and do what is necessary to protect the majority of people.

“And we cannot be at peace with ourselves, if we take a step which leads to many more innocent people dying in Singapore.”

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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