Singapore Laws
While Singapore has been independent since 1965, their government is still based primarily on English Common Law, inherited from the days when it was a British Colony.
While most business related laws are formed by Judges, there are many of the criminal laws which are statutory and therefore strictly enforced.
The Laws of Singapore are considered harsh by most of the world community. To many nations the form punishment takes, coupled by the seeming innocuousness of some of the actions considered criminal in Singapore, appears unnecessarily brutal. Capitol punishment is in the form of hanging. Although public execution is no longer performed in public, a prisoner on Death Row is not informed of an execution date until four days before. Singapore executes foreign nationals as well as its own citizens.
Capitol punishment is usually reserved for such crimes as murder, kidnapping and piracy. However, of the many actions deemed of a lesser offense, caning is a standard bodily punishment. The act of caning involves the forceful beating across the back of the prisoner. This invariably results in massive cutting and bleeding and occasionally broken ribs. The performance of caning is a public display as a means of discouraging criminal activity.
Monetary fines are also usually coupled with the physical punishments. These fines are on the whole much more severe than is the international average. Prison sentences are also deemed to be of a much longer duration than is average. Taken into account that many of the "offenses" in Singapore are considered harmless to the rest of the world, Singapore is not a tourist destination and care must be taken even while passing through the ports to other destinations.
As an example of a few of these "extra ordinary" crimes, there is the law against failing to flush a public toilet. That carries a $500 SD fine for the first offense and a caning and three months in prison for the second. Chewi
ng gum is forbidden contraband in Singapore and will involve fines and, if found with more than is considered "personal use", will involve some months in prison. Drug enforcement policies are aggressively enforced and even minute quantities of cannabis involve stiff fines, caning and prison time. If caught with as much as a pound, the sentence is death at the end of a rope.
