Sunday, July 5, 2009

Fall guys and the law

The term "tua pek kong" (actually the name of a Chinese god) is local jargon for a fall guy - a person who takes the rap for another's offence.

Under Singapore law, most cases of paying someone else to take the fall for your offence is caught by the laws relating to corruption under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Another alternative that may be used, but still is rarely seen, is the offence of perverting the course of justice under section 204A of the Penal Code. This is a comparatively new section. It appears that looking at Part XI (False Evidence and Offences against Public Justice) of the Penal Code under which section 204A is found, that this section is meant to be a catch-all or miscellaneous section for tactics that are not clearly offences under the other sections in this part.

Wikipedia states that perverting the course of justice under English law covers 3 types of acts - threatening a witness or juror, intimidating a witness or juror, and fabricating or disposing of evidence. It appears that most of these would be covered by existing Singapore provisions. The Ministry of Home Affairs takes the view that the new section covers bribery of witnesses before trial which may not be caught by existing provisions.

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