While we should respect the grief of those with personal memories of Yong Pung How, it's worth pushing back against uncritical media celebration of his legacy. Like his lifelong buddy LKY, Yong was a deeply punitive authoritarian and the legal system he oversaw reflected that.
His famous hostility towards criminal appeals was not a good thing (especially when it seemed to come at expense of rule of law, e.g. attempting to exceed statutory maximum sentences). Appeals are an important mechanism against miscarriages of justice todayonline.com/singapore/yong…
When lawyer M Ravi asked (in the case of Vignes Mourthi) if an innocent man could be hanged for procedural reasons, Yong did not seem to have scruples about saying "yes". theonlinecitizen.com/2010/08/10/i-w…
There are also questions about Yong's legal knowledge & reasoning. In 1999 (per DPP Gilbert Koh) Yong seemingly did not know the Penal Code provided marital immunity for rape. mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-mem…
Bear in mind this was 8 years after RvR, the House of Lords case abolishing marital immunity in English common law. A case vital not just in criminal law & feminism but constitutionally (abolished common law defence with retrospective effect). Surely Yong would have heard of it?
In 2004, in defence of the weirdly specific ban on oral-sex-not-followed-by-PIV-intercourse (i.e. precursor to s377A, before the law was made explicitly homophobic), Yong made some remarks which did not really inspire confidence in his subtlety of mind. theage.com.au/world/judge-de…
At a time when the press is full of glowing praise, it's probably good to keep some perspective about the entirety of Yong's legacy.
