Mr. B
it is good that brought up the issue of Mas Selamat v Wong Kan Seng. One more thing you might want to know about my past life is that I was once upon a time Assistant Director (Discipline) of the Singapore Civil Service.
For two years, my job was to determine who screwed up, how bad was the screw up and what punishment to mete out. I suspect that v few people would have punished/fired as many people in their lives as I had in just two years. The only ones who can come close are probably the magistrates and district judges.
Other than "vicarous liability", what ELSE do you know about law? Do you understand the principles of natural justice and double jeopardy? Let it be know that there is a very formal and strict system of disciplinary in the Civil Service. There are rules, regulations and principles governing the issue of culpability.
To understand culpability, you first have to understand that each officer in the Civil Service has his job/responsibility. The supervisor(s) has the responsibility to make sure that the job gets done. This is actually quite common sense, but let me just lay out the basics.
Obviously, what we end up with is a hierarchy. So the natural question is: suppose a person A screws up, at what level do the buck stop??
To digress, imagine that some Walmart cashier is negligent and leaves money unattended and thereby stolen, do we fire the CEO because he is "vicarously responsible"? If you think about it, you will realize that it doesn't seem to make sense. But how do we explain this? Well, it turns out, the only reasonable way to decide where the buck should stop is to ask one simple question: "who could reasonably have been expected to be able to prevent the mistake from happening, but DIDN'T?"
Now back to the story of Mas Selamat, the only one who could reasonably have expected to have detected and prevented the problem was the person in charge of the detention center, i.e. the superintendent. Actually, even before the final decision was made, it was quite clear to me based on the facts of the case that the superintendent was going to get the axe and I was right. The trouble with the Mas Selamat case is that it was quite a GRIEVOUS breach. It's not a policy mistake. Basically there was complacency and non-compliance of lawful order on the ground. WKS is many levels above the superintendent and really cannot be help responsible. He is however responsible for dealing with the problem after it occurred.
There is no need for you to agree or accept what I say. I am merely telling you in no uncertain terms that there are principles and processes with which to deal with disciplinary problems and Mas Selamat's case while sensational, isn't entirely extraordinary or exceptional in terms of the administration of discipline.
For two years, my job was to determine who screwed up, how bad was the screw up and what punishment to mete out. I suspect that v few people would have punished/fired as many people in their lives as I had in just two years. The only ones who can come close are probably the magistrates and district judges.
Other than "vicarous liability", what ELSE do you know about law? Do you understand the principles of natural justice and double jeopardy? Let it be know that there is a very formal and strict system of disciplinary in the Civil Service. There are rules, regulations and principles governing the issue of culpability.
To understand culpability, you first have to understand that each officer in the Civil Service has his job/responsibility. The supervisor(s) has the responsibility to make sure that the job gets done. This is actually quite common sense, but let me just lay out the basics.
Obviously, what we end up with is a hierarchy. So the natural question is: suppose a person A screws up, at what level do the buck stop??
To digress, imagine that some Walmart cashier is negligent and leaves money unattended and thereby stolen, do we fire the CEO because he is "vicarously responsible"? If you think about it, you will realize that it doesn't seem to make sense. But how do we explain this? Well, it turns out, the only reasonable way to decide where the buck should stop is to ask one simple question: "who could reasonably have been expected to be able to prevent the mistake from happening, but DIDN'T?"
Now back to the story of Mas Selamat, the only one who could reasonably have expected to have detected and prevented the problem was the person in charge of the detention center, i.e. the superintendent. Actually, even before the final decision was made, it was quite clear to me based on the facts of the case that the superintendent was going to get the axe and I was right. The trouble with the Mas Selamat case is that it was quite a GRIEVOUS breach. It's not a policy mistake. Basically there was complacency and non-compliance of lawful order on the ground. WKS is many levels above the superintendent and really cannot be help responsible. He is however responsible for dealing with the problem after it occurred.
There is no need for you to agree or accept what I say. I am merely telling you in no uncertain terms that there are principles and processes with which to deal with disciplinary problems and Mas Selamat's case while sensational, isn't entirely extraordinary or exceptional in terms of the administration of discipline.
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