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Article
City Harvest case and the separation of powers
Straits Times
  • Yihan GOH, Singapore Management University
Publication Type
News Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
2-2018
Abstract

Verdict provides important example of how the courts and Parliament play different roles in Singapore's legal system. The Court of Appeal last week upheld the reduced sentences passed in the City Harvest Church (CHC) case. Six former church leaders were charged with having conspired to commit the aggravated offence of criminal breach of trust (CBT) as an "agent" under Section 409 of the Penal Code. Departing from the earlier interpretation that had stood for the past 40 years, the court decided that Section 409 applied only to professional agents, which the former church leaders were not. The charges were reduced to Section 406, which provided for shorter terms of imprisonment. This decision has triggered a review of our CBT laws. It is clear that Section 409, which was enacted some 150 years ago, is no longer adequate to deal with the CBT cases in the 21st century.

Publisher
Singapore Press holdings
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Citation Information
Yihan GOH. "City Harvest case and the separation of powers" Straits Times (2018) p. A21 - A21 ISSN: 1692-9344
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/yihan-goh/26/