All that Glitters Isn't Gold and Silence Isn't Always Golden
- Julie O'Connor
- 5 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 17 hours ago
What follows isn’t about one politician, one incident, or one scandal, it’s about patterns, systemic failures, and the slow erosion of trust when accountability is perceived to be uneven and conflicts of interest go unchecked.
In recent years, Singaporeans have been told that trust is under threat because of irresponsible speech, opposition politics, or those who “break windows” by asking uncomfortable questions. But public trust doesn't erode overnight with a question that Lee Hsien Yang or Kenneth Jeyaretnam have asked, an article that The Online Citizen has published, or a lie that the Leader of the Opposition purportedly told. It frays slowly, almost imperceptibly, if people begin to sense that rules are applied unevenly, that scrutiny travels in one direction only, and that accountability depends less on principle than on proximity to power.
If removing a title were all it took to safeguard parliamentary integrity and public confidence, then Singapore’s problems would be remarkably easy to solve. Unfortunately, reality is far less accommodating. From my observation of the court of public opinion, Pritam Singh isn't the one to blame for any erosion of trust in Singapore’s political system. Anyone who believes otherwise simply hasn’t been paying attention to the number of broken windows!
When the System Investigates Itself
Following the prolonged and intense institutional scrutiny of both Pritam Singh and Lee Hsien Yang, I see that public confidence in the integrity of Singapore's political system has further eroded not because of them, but because of what many perceive as the inequitable application of legal and political processes. When citizens begin to question not just individual cases, but the fairness of the system itself, it's a clear sign that trust, once a defining feature of Singapore’s governance, has begun to fray.
If the PAP leadership were genuinely concerned about the erosion of public trust in Singapore’s political system, the first and most obvious step would be the establishment of a 'truly independent' watchdog, one that doesn't report to, answer to, or remain beholden to the ruling party, and one where there isn't a whiff of “ownself check ownself”.
Without impartial and independent oversight, appeals to integrity are empty slogans. Accountability can't be credible when it's filtered through political convenience, and trust can't be rebuilt when those being scrutinised ultimately control the scrutiny. Until that contradiction is addressed, calls to defend standards will continue to ring hollow, not because some citizens are cynical, but because the system has given them every reason to be.
Trust in Singapore’s system of governance and justice doesn't matter only to Singaporeans. It matters equally to foreigners who live, work, invest, conduct business, and place their trust in the integrity of the system. When that trust fractures, the consequences extend far beyond domestic politics, reaching investor confidence, international credibility, and Singapore’s standing as a rules-based jurisdiction.
My mistrust stems from witnessing firsthand a system that loudly proclaims no cover-ups are tolerated and that no one is above the law, yet my lived reality was starkly different. After I blew the whistle, a 'well-connected' board member was allowed to buy silence and suppress evidence. Sworn statements, and even a writ, were sidelined to protect him, investors of an SGX-listed group were misled, and legal bodies refused to investigate, retreating behind the convenient excuse of “insufficient evidence”. It stands to reason that if you never lift up the rug, you're unlikely to find any dirt! Meanwhile, the Managing Director was allowed to remain in his role and oversee the eventual collapse of the listed group. There was no investigation, so he didn't lose his title or become sidelined; he was protected.
So perhaps the Minister should also consider how many leaders are never investigated at all, how many cases are quietly closed before scrutiny begins, and how many whistleblowers are paid off, pressured, or discredited to keep inconvenient truths out of sight. Because the real question is not why some people are punished twice, but why others are not held accountable even once.
What I witnessed raises a chilling question: if witnesses can be so easily flipped, and allegations supported by sworn evidence are so readily ignored, how many others, witnesses, whistleblowers, or concerned insiders, are being enticed or coerced into silence to protect the well-connected, shield Government-Linked entities, or discredit those who speak out?
What confidence can the public have that individuals such as Lee Hsien Yang, Lee Suet Fern, Pritam Singh, and countless others are truly the “villains” they are portrayed to be in a captured press? What if anyone who asks inconvenient questions, exposes uncomfortable truths, or gains public support outside the ruling narrative becomes a target, not merely of criticism, but of false allegations and systematic discrediting?
And if that "what if" happens, and gatekeepers close ranks and accountability stops at the doors of power, who's left to investigate, because without independent watchmen, the consequences could be life-destroying.
Who watches the watchers?
We know that no case reaches a judge by magic. Investigators, prosecutors, and institutions, the very bodies whose independence we are asked to trust, decide which cases move forward and which don't. What happens if a gatekeeper faces a conflict of interest, or when a case is politically inconvenient, can truth alone protect someone if evidence is delayed, narrowed, manipulated or quietly ignored, and there's no genuine independent oversight?
Some might ask, but what about recusal? My answer to that would be where conflicts of interest exist in the upper echelons I don't believe it's meaningful to simply recuse oneself and pass a file to a subordinate. For example, if the AG is conflicted, a subordinate within the AGC still operates within the same hierarchy, answers to the same leadership, and understands perfectly well which side of the bread is buttered.
It's here where justice is most exposed, not in open court, but in the opaque decisions made before a case ever reaches a judge. From what I've observed, it's at this pre-judicial stage that public confidence in equitable justice is most easily undermined. The backlash following the decision not to prosecute individuals named overseas in the Keppel bribery scandal is a prominent example of how such decisions can erode trust in the system itself.
But even when a court, or indeed a Parliament delivers a verdict, we need to remember that those outcomes are shaped entirely by the evidence placed before them. Judges and Parliamentarians are not omniscient. They can only assess what they are given. If evidence presented to Court, or Parliament, is incomplete, compromised, or selectively presented, even a conscientious court or group of Parliamentarians may reach the wrong conclusion.
This reality helps explain why Li Shengwu declined to participate in legal proceedings brought by the Attorney-General’s Chambers, because participation can sometimes lend legitimacy to a process that may not, in practice, allow for a full airing of all relevant evidence. We need look no further than the Parti Liyani case as a sobering reminder of how incomplete information and false evidence can shape judicial outcomes.
Perception of Unequal Accountability
I don't believe it's difficult to see why there's a perception of unequal accountability in Singapore. Below are just a few examples of the concerns that I've seen repeatedly raised about whether accountability and justice are applied evenly, selectively, or not at all, particularly when comparing the scrutiny faced by opposition figures with the responses to controversies involving senior members of the ruling party.
The most recent example, Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh (now former) has been subjected to prolonged and intense institutional scrutiny, arising from what began as a lie told in Parliament by one of his MPs. By contrast, the former Prime Minister’s delayed disclosure of prior knowledge of an extramarital affair involving the Speaker of Parliament and a ruling party MP, a matter many observers consider relevant to parliamentary integrity and public confidence, attracted comparatively little formal examination.
During the period in which the Speaker had not disclosed his affair to Parliament, he sat on the Speakers' chair preaching about integrity and honesty in Parliament, and was allowed to chair the Committee of Privileges before which Mr. Singh was examined. Surely this raises legitimate questions about institutional judgment and standards of propriety. Knowing what was later revealed, it's fair to ask why the then Prime Minister considered this arrangement appropriate, and whether such circumstances were consistent with the principles of impartiality and public confidence that the Speaker's position and Committee of Privileges are meant to uphold.
In corporate governance, non-disclosure of material information attracts sanctions even when no explicit lie is told, because withholding material information misleads stakeholders. The same principle should apply, at least as strongly, to those entrusted with public power. If accountability were to be reduced to technicalities such as “no one asked, so I didn't tell", that's not transparency; it's moral minimalism.
Who Is Investigated, and Who Is Not
The Singapore Democratic Party urged Prime Minister Wong to convene a public Commission of Inquiry into ministers’ attendance at private dinners involving Su Haijin, the individual later convicted in one of Singapore's largest money-laundering scandals, warning that inaction could erode trust. No commission was established.
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Similarly, concerns over the Ridout Road rental of state-owned properties by senior ministers prompted calls for an independent inquiry. Instead, the matter was examined by the CPIB, an agency that reports to the Prime Minister, and overseen by a long-time colleague of the ministers involved. No Committee of Inquiry was convened, again reinforcing perceptions that scrutiny flows unevenly.
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Lee Hsien Yang and his sister publicly alleged abuse of power by the then Prime Minister in matters surrounding Lee Kuan Yew's Will, raising concerns about conflicts of interest given the Attorney-General’s prior role as the Prime Minister’s personal lawyer. These allegations were debated in Parliament where the PM's party hold majority control, they were not examined by an independent body outside it.
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After Probate was allowed to pass unhindered, Lee Hsien Yang's wife, Lee Suet Fern, would be reported and found guilty of grossly improper professional conduct in relation to the same Will. A subsequent critique by a King’s Counsel, shared by Lee Hsien Yang included:
"The Court's reasoning in its judgment is legally unsound and falls into serious error.”
“the judgment of the Court and its conclusion that LSF committed misconduct is flawed.”
“In my view, such findings would not be sustained on any appeal were one to be available against the judgment of the Court. Further, since the findings of misconduct are untenable no sanction should have been imposed.”
This inevitably deepened public unease about how the evidence against Lee Suet Fern had been handled.
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Lee Hsien Yang’s son, Li Shengwu, was pursued across borders over a comment made in a private Facebook post. He later explained his decision not to participate further in legal proceedings.
"Recently, the AGC applied to strike out parts of my own defense affidavit, with the result that they will not be considered at the trial. Moreover, they demanded that these parts be sealed in the court record, so that the public cannot know what the removed parts contain"
Such cases prompt a broader question: when the flow of evidence and narrative is tightly controlled, how does that shape justice?
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The Parti Liyani case again looms large. For four years, her life was upended by evidence later found to be flimsy and false. The case illustrated how devastating the consequences can be when flawed evidence is pursued with institutional force.
From what I have observed over more than a decade, the above examples have done far more to contribute to the erosion of public confidence in Singapore’s political system than anything Pritam Singh is alleged to have said or done. So, stripping his title will fix what window....?
A Personal Reckoning
But I didn't need to read about these cases to lose trust in the system. My doubts were forged much earlier, through lived experience. Had the police or the Attorney-General’s Chambers reached out to me before prosecuting The Online Citizen’s editor, Terry Xu, for sharing my open letter, I would have spoken openly and without hesitation. I would have explained that my concern about inequitable justice was never about the courts themselves, but about prosecutorial discretion, about conflicts, about who is investigated, who is charged, and who is spared.
No one from the police or the Attorney-General’s Chambers made any attempt to contact me. My views were assumed. My intent was inferred. And the process moved on, untroubled by the absence of inquiry. Although the Judge did raise concerns at the time, Terry Xu would be convicted of Contempt of Court.
Was no one willing to contact me because my account might have exposed dents in a carefully managed narrative that cover-ups are not allowed and no-one is above the law in Singapore? When conflicts in the upper echelons exist, and scrutiny stops where power begins, questions might have been raised about the only independent body left to investigate—God!
The "Purported" Second Key
Before anyone reaches for the familiar reassurance “but we have a second key,” let me be clear about what that has meant in practice. I have written to two Prime Ministers, three Presidents, and two Directors of the CPIB. Despite obvious conflicts within both the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the Ministry of Law, and despite allegations set out in two sworn statements, made by a witness who was later financially compensated to retract his writ, the CPIB passed my submission to the police. The police, who later claimed to have received advice from the Attorney General's Chambers, replied on behalf of the President, insufficient evidence to investigate, case closed. What second key?
This is why assurances alone no longer reassure. When allegations supported by sworn evidence can be closed without investigation, while the public is asked to trust processes it's not permitted to see, doubt becomes unavoidable. A system that concentrates discretion in the hands of a few, shields those decisions from scrutiny, and treats questioning as disloyalty does not protect confidence, it erodes it. Over time, justice begins to feel less like a safeguard and more like a privilege, extended selectively. And once that perception takes hold, trust does not merely fade; it breaks windows.
These concerns I have raised are not personal grievances; I believe they are structural failures that extend far beyond my own case. Lord Acton’s warning that power corrupts remains relevant because weak oversight allows even well-intentioned institutions to drift, and drift, left unchecked, becomes direction. In a highly centralised media environment, scrutiny is filtered through channels aligned with the executive, and public perception is shaped accordingly. In such a system, heroes and villains might not be revealed by evidence; but assigned those titles. That alone should give pause before accepting any villains as portrayed in the captured press.
The Cost of Silence
Titles can be stripped, motions passed, and narratives disciplined through a compliant media, but collective memory cannot be erased. People remember patterns. They remember which cases were pursued with relentless intensity, and which were quietly allowed to disappear. They remember when exhaustive explanations were demanded, and when “no further action” became a convenient full stop.
When Prime Minister Lawrence Wong recently called on the PAP to speak up if they see something wrong, it sounded noble. But credibility demands that such a call apply equally to all sides. A system that only “speaks up” when the opposition stumbles isn't defending integrity, it's enforcing hierarchy. Without moral courage to apply the same standards to everyone, especially the powerful, even the most polished institutions hollow out from within, retaining form but increasingly losing legitimacy.
Pritam Singh is correct, the court of public opinion is powerful. Yes, if you have the power, it may be managed on social media through bans, blocks, or the narrowing of platforms, but it doesn't sit only online. It convenes quietly in homes, in coffee shops, in workplaces, and in private chat groups, where lived experience is compared and inconsistencies are noticed. These conversations cannot be regulated by press statements or silenced by takedown orders. This court delivers its verdict slowly and collectively, indifferent to power, immune to pressure, and relentless in its memory.
Perhaps before flinging any more stones at the opposition, the PAP should first look into their own glasshouse and count the windows they’ve been smashing. The window I blew the whistle on over a decade ago? Still cracked. Still ignored. Still, theirs to explain. So, all that glitters isn't necessarily gold, and silence isn't always golden!
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GOD
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