Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Absolute liability

It is a crime in Singapore to engage in commercial sex with a person under age 18. Here is a report on the passing of the law in Singapore in 2007.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/300358/1/.html

I did not find any mention that this is an absolute liability case, although some people have made a statement to this effect. I made some research on what is the meaning of absolute liability and found this description in Wikipedia to be enlightening:
Regulatory bodies tend to favour the approach of declaring offences to be strict or absolute liability, because it makes it easier to prosecute people: there is no longer a requirement to demonstrate that the defendant was deliberately intending to commit an offence. Jurists consider such a mechanism to be a blunt instrument, and recommend its use only in limited circumstances:
Absolute liability is used for certain regulatory offences in which it is necessary for individuals engaged in potentially hazardous or harmful activity to exercise extreme, and not merely reasonable, care. Such offences as exceeding 60 kilometres per hour in a 60 kilometre zone, causing pollution to waters, selling alcohol to underage persons, refusing or failing to submit to breath testing and publishing a name in breach of a suppression order. In these cases, the courts accepted that the benefits to the community overrode any potential negative impact on the accused person.
According to this explanation, it is a good practice to declare an offence as absolute liability, before it can be treated as such. This will impose a duty of extreme care to be exercised by the potential offender. If it is not declared as such, then the offender can put forward the defense of "mistake of fact". 

Can someone help me to search the law, to see if this offence was declared to be a "absolute liability"? 




4 comments:

Anonymous said...

To committ commercial sex with an under aged the under aged must be produced in court as evidence otherwise there is no offence. One cannot commit an act by yourself.
For the case of under aged scandal the court must make the prosecution to make the under aged girl in court for cross examination to give evidence against those men. If not the court must acquit all of them.
The gag clause is unfair because this is not a case of rape or molest but a commercial crime.

Anonymous said...

*strict* liability you mean.

yujuan said...

Dun agree with Anon 10.23 PM.

It's youth's folly and the thrill of making easy money that made the girl resort to selling her body.
Inhuman to subject her to appear 48 times in Court, and even more inhuman to be grilled 48 times by big shot lawyers hired by her wealthy clients. Intense shaming would scar her for life.
"Absolute liability" or otherwise, the onus is on the clients to check, how could these men be so gullible to take the greedy pimp's and the young pros's words.
However, dun agree to jailing these
chee ko pek men, they should be given the benefit of the doubt in such unique circumstances, revealing them in public is punishment enough, maybe community service and/or a huge fine is sufficient.

Anonymous said...

@ ANON: June 28, 2012 3:08 PM

"unique circumstances"???
Unique in what way?
First time rich people use money to get sexual favours?

"However, dun agree to jailing these chee ko pek men" ???
So is it now open season on all underaged girls in Singapore?

"maybe community service and/or a huge fine is sufficient." ???
Are you going to tell that to the parents of the exploited underaged girl?
All parents of exploited underaged girls all around the world?

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