The significance of PM’s coming statement in parliament

Anti-PAP cyberwarriors, sane and nutty, and neutral commenters have been complaining that PM’s coming parliament statement is all wayang because

— he enjoys parliamentary immunity, a feature of the Westminster and other Western systems

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(1) No Member shall be liable to any civil or criminal proceedings, arrest, imprisonment or damages by reason of any matter or thing which he may have brought before Parliament or a committee by petition, bill, resolution, motion, or otherwise or may have said in Parliament or in committee.

(2) No person shall be liable to any civil or criminal
proceedings, arrest, imprisonment or damages by reason of any act done under the authority of Parliament or the Speaker and within its or his legal powers or under any warrant issued by virtue of those powers.

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He can defame his siblings publicly and they can’t sue him unless he repeats his comments outside parliament.

— His siblings don’t have such immunity to counter him.

— The PAP controls parliament, so difficult questions can be ignored and a vote of confidence can be engineered easily.

The critics are correct.

But they have forgotten, or are ignorant, or are concealing another aspect of the Westminster way of doing things which could explain why he’s making the statemewnt.

By Westminster convention, a minister found to have misled parliament is expected to resign or face being sacked. This is because the knowing presentation of false information to parliament, is a very serious offence under the Westminster system.

Effectively then, PM is making a statutory declaration in public and challenging his siblings to show that he misled parliament.

Of course, in the de-facto one party state we live in, the PAP can ignore the convention. But still there is the international reputation of S’pore to consider, something both the PAP and S’poreans really, really care about.

We love the praise of ang mohs, and get defensive and angry when they criticise us. Ang moh still tua kee, despite S’pore becoming self-governing in 1959, and independent in 1965.