SINGAPORE: Property tycoon Ong Beng Seng pleaded guilty on Monday (Aug 4) to a charge of abetting former Transport Minister S Iswaran in obstructing justice.
A second charge for instigating Mr Iswaran to obtain flights and a hotel stay from Ong will be taken into consideration during sentencing, which was adjourned to Aug 15.
Both the prosecution and defence called for the court to exercise judicial mercy and impose only a fine, in light of what Ong’s lawyer described as “a devastating cocktail of medical problems”.
What is judicial mercy?
It’s an extraordinary measure in which the sentence of an accused person is reduced on humanitarian grounds, criminal lawyer Adrian Wee of Lighthouse Law said.
He said that factors considered by the court in applying judicial mercy include the severity of the crime and others such as the risk of re-offending.
“Ultimately it is a balancing exercise between the need to punish offenders and putting an individual, for example, one who is gravely ill, at risk,” said Mr Wee.
Ms Joyce Khoo from Quahe Woo & Palmer described judicial mercy as the tempering of punishment imposed, in light of the offender’s personal circumstances.
“The court would take into account the offender’s exceptional circumstances and ameliorate the punishment imposed to reflect the court’s and society’s humanity towards the offender’s plight,” she said.
Mr Sanjiv Vaswani of Vaswani Law Chambers meanwhile defined it as the power that the courts have to impose a lenient sentence in light of exceptional mitigating circumstances.
In exercising judicial mercy, the court “effectively displaces the culpability of the offender as a central consideration, with considerations of humanity”, he added.
In Ong’s case, the court heard how cancer had damaged his skeletal system and severely compromised his immune system, making him vulnerable to life-threatening infections. He also suffers from complications which could exacerbate his risk of infection and gangrene.
His lawyer Cavinder Bull said Ong’s risk of infection would increase in prison due to the movement of people, in turn increasing his risk of death. In contrast, Ong’s home environment is more controlled, and he has access to medical personnel who have been treating him for years.
