User:Sgconlaw/sandbox2

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Judicial influence over the ISA
Judicial powers over the ISA provisions was significantly restricted when, in 1989, the Parliament made amendments to the ISA to limit the scope of judicial review through the inclusion of Articles 8A, 8B, 8C and 8D. The Constitution was also amended to include Article 149(3), which allows amendments to the ISA. Article 149(1) was also reworded to include a reference to Articles 11 and 12. These changes effectively prevented any challenges to the validity of the ISA Amendments, and also allowed for its retrospective operation. It is interesting to note that these amendments came swiftly after the Court of Appeal in Chng Suan Tze v. Minister for Home Affairs quashed an order issued under the Internal Security Act for the preventive detention alleged to be involved in an alleged Marxist conspiracy.

By restricting the court's jurisdiction to only reviewing the procedural issues, the hands of the judiciary are essentially tied when it comes to an executive order that might potentially violate an individual's right. With regard to the ISA, this lack of authority is even more explicit given the Parliament's well-recognised practice of leaving national security matters within sole discretion of the executive. Thus, it appears that the executive is granted unfettered powers over such matters.

There has been instances where a person has been detained under the ISA even before he has committed any criminal act that threatens the security of society. One of the most prominent cases involved political figure Chia Thye Poh, who was detained after protesting against the People’s Action Party and staging a boycott together with other Ministers of Parliament over the issue of Singapore’s secession from Malaysia in 1965.

Academics have generally observed that measures such as the ISA reflect how the government treats fundamental liberties as security flaws, and restriction of these rights are seen as correcting these security flaws, rather than an erosion of human rights. However, in the post-September 11 environment, executive discretion under the ISA appears more justified with the opinion that it is now necessary to uphold security in an increasingly tumultuous world. As quoted from the netizen blog "yawningbread.org", "(the) preemptive powers of the ISA would save many lives."

Ultimately, the issues regarding the ISA revolve around whether the necessity for security warrants the indeterminate detention of a person. Chia Thye Poh, for one, has spent almost 23 years in prison detained under the ISA, denying his right to personal liberty. The difficulty lies between reconciling two competing interests, to achieve security and peace in singapore and to ensure the personal liberty of people in Singapore.