PRESS RELEASE:
Today in Singapore's High Court, a hearing to strike out the application by the plaintiff in the matter of Wee Kim San Lawrence Bernard & Attorney General was held. At this juncture, the AG has managed to strike out Mr Wee's application, as the Assistant Registrar concurred with their argument that Mr Wee lacks locus standi, or standing to be heard by the Court on this matter. In today's decision, the Assistant Registrar of the Court determined that Mr Wee had failed to show where the government had violated his Constitutional rights in its failure to clarify the position that homosexual males are protected from discrimination under Article 12 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore.
For the Attorney-General's Chambers, Ms Aurill Kam Su Cheun argued that the current Tripartite Guidelines for employers created with cooperation from the Ministry of Manpower strongly discourage discrimination in the workplace in Singapore.
However, counsel for Mr Wee, Mr M Ravi, strenuously argued for the necessity of a declaration from the Court on the issue of discrimination against homosexuals in relation to Article 12. Mr Ravi contended that the Tripartite Guidelines and even the commitment made through the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to which Singapore is a signatory, are non-binding and provide no legal remedy for homosexual men or women who have been discriminated against in the workplace, as has been the case for Mr Wee. Mr Ravi also highlighted that while the government had made statements to clarify its position on the prohibition of discrimination against women based on sexual orientation in its statements on CEDAW, there has been no equivalent statement by the government on prohibition of discrimination against homosexual men based on sexual orientation. This is compounded by the existence of statue 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalizes male homosexuality in Singapore.
Mr Ravi stated that the absence of the Court's declaration on Constitutional protection would be a tremendous set-back for the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in Singapore as well as for women as the Constitutional protection from discrimination needs to be clarified by the Court when it comes to cases of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender.
Today's decision can be appealed by Mr Wee, as was the case in the Tan Eng Hong Standing decision by the Court of Appeal. Mr Tan's case had also originally been struck out by the Assistant Registrar at the High Court. However, Mr Tan proceeded to the Court of Appeal, which issued a definitive judgement in favor of Mr Tan's standing to be heard.
M Ravi
*Human rights lawyer in Singapore
