Chee's fine reduced, can now run for office

Chief Justice Yong Pung How, who upheld the original guilty verdict, ticked off both Chee Soon Juan, head of the Singapore Democratic Party, and fellow member Wong Hong Toy for repeatedly breaking the law.

"I think they are incorrigible," he said.

But he reduced the fines imposed on both men to S$1900 to allow them to contest future elections. The two had opted not to pay the fines and went to jail instead.

Under Singapore law, a fine of more than S$2000 automatically disqualifies a person from seeking public office.

Chee and Wong were appealing against conviction for breaking a law against giving unlicensed speeches in public, and sentenced to pay S$2400 or serve 12 days in jail.

Chee's crusade for free speech and the subsequent trial sparked a rare and heated debate in the local media which is tightly controlled by the government.

Chee had also chosen jail over a fine in an earlier conviction for breaking the same Public Entertainments Act.

Chee, who declined to assure the court that he would not speak in public again without a permit, told reporters after the judgment he would continue to fight for free speech.

"It is an assurance that I would not give. If you are curtailing my freedom, my right to freedom of speech...I will continue to fight for my right. This is an issue of having a level playing field," he said.

The judge warned the appellants that the next time they broke the law the sentence would be stiff. "If you want to martyr yourself, go ahead," he said.

The judge earlier dismissed Chee's lawyer's arguments that the Public Entertainment Act was unconstitutional.

The appeal attracted international interest again with the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) sending an observer.

Chee, whose party has no seats in parliament, has said democracy is stifled by the public speaking system he challenged and by censorship laws.

The government says the permit law is a procedural matter necessary to maintain public order and does not substantively affect the right to free speech.

It also says there are ample avenues for people in Singapore to express their views.

Meanwhile an AFP reported Chee saying, "We value very much our constitutional right, something that I don't take very trivially ... it really boils down to the rights of every citizen to hold this government to account ... through freedom of speech," he said.

But before the judge announced the fine reduction, he adjourned the court briefly for the politicians to consider his request to give an undertaking not to commit the offence again.

When Chee and Wong refused to give the undertaking, the judge told their lawyer, Kevin de Souza, to speak to his clients again.

But the pair stuck to their positions and said they left it to the judge's discretion while admitting they were aware of the consequences.

Yong said it would be pointless if he reduced the fine and they continued to defy the law, get punished with heftier fines and continue to be barred from elections.

"I will reduce the fine. The only thing I'm saying is that if you go out (and continue defying the law), I'll be wasting my breath by reducing the sentence," Yong said.

"It is entirely up to them if they want to get into trouble," Yong remarked after cutting the fine.

De Souza said: "They realise the consequences."

The judge also ticked off De Souza during his submissions on various aspects of the Singapore constitution, accusing him of "rambling around" and reminding him "don't teach your grandfather to suck eggs."

De Souza had argued that the Public Entertainments Act under which his clients were convicted violated constitutional guarantees of free speech in the affluent island, ruled by the People's Action Party (PAP) for the past 40 years. He also said that the sentence was "manifestly excessive."

Under the Act, a police permit should be obtained to give a political speech in public.

Chee told reporters that the question of eligibility in contesting elections was never the main issue in his fight for more rights.

"In order to have free and fair elections, you need freedom of speech and freedom of press. Let's get the fundamentals rights, get a system where there is a level playing field for all parties to compete and when that happens, let's talks of elections," he said.

The PAP won all but two of the 83 seats contested in the last general elections, held in January 1997, when Chee, one of the PAP's boldest critics, lost his bid for a seat.

Apart from Chee's Singapore Democratic Party, the other key opposition group is the Workers Party, which is facing closure because it cannot pay a large defamation award to a PAP MP and nine others.

Under Singapore law, a political party unable to pay debts can be wound up like an insolvent company.