Singapore fake news law - ownself judge ownself

Natural justice demands that when making decisions which impinge on people's rights or interest, public officials have to act judicially. This entails sufficient notice of charge, a right to be heard, a fair hearing, a right to appeal, and a duty to give reasons. 

Technically, the Prevention of Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act has been crafted to satisfy these requirements. Except for the last, Singapore government officials are not duty bound to give reasons, and many in fact do not do so.

".. justice should not only be done, but should manifestly be seen to be done"... Lord Hewart, Chief Justice of England and Wales;

One of the two pillars of natural justice is the doctrine of nemo judex in causa sua, Latin for "no-one should be a judge in his own case." The reason of course, is to prevent actual bias. With Ministers as the arbiters of truth, it will be challenging for them to show how justice will be carried out.

Let's take one example. In the 2017 MRT train collision, one train read-ended another at the Joo Koon Station resulting in injuries to 38 passengers. If someone were to post a comment of the serious accident and describes the collision, it may be a 'false statement' if it irks the Minister since the authority regarded it as a non-event having described it as one train "coming into contact" with another. The Minister of Transport may choose to persecute him. It will be indefensible for the Minister to show that he was'nt a judge in his own case.

POFMA is so fundamentally and blatantly flawed in this respect. It is incomprehensible why the Legislative authority choose not to see it that way.

Perhaps it would be naive to underrate the ingenuity of the authorities to circumvent this bothersome doctrine in natural justice. Afterall, this is a government that can make one single person an illegal assembly, and rear-ended collisions into a mere coming into contact. Perhaps the various ministries will establish reciprocity arrangements to pofma false news purveyors. Falsehoods on MRT will be dealt with by the Education Minister, those regarding national service by the Health Minister, those on educational matters by the Minister of Defence, etc. Scratch each other's back - no more ownself judge ownself.