Why so little time for consumer protection public consultation?

LETTER SENT TO THE STRAITS TIMES (SINGAPORE) AND THE BUSINESS TIMES (SINGAPORE) ON 30 SEPTEMBER 2007

A public consultation was launched for proposed amendments to consumer protection legislation last Friday.

If the amendments eventually make it into legislation, the changes will affect millions of consumers in Singapore. One can reasonably argue that it will be a step forward for human rights in Singapore since the consumer will now enjoy wider protection.

At the same time, compliance with the legislation may mean higher expenses for consumer-centric businesses in Singapore, especially the financial services sector that will be affected uniquely by these changes.

Yet, for such an important piece of legislation, the Ministry of Trade & Industry has only permitted a mere 10 working days for members of the public, including interest groups, businesses and others affected by the legislation, to respond to the changes.

This leads one to question the sincerity of this exercise. How serious is the relevant law-maker about incorporating public feedback into the exercise?

And even if one can justify the law-maker is serious, the short time period is extraordinary and appears irrational.

Most public consultations - especially those that impact millions of Singaporeans - are held over at least one whole month. If the changes are controversial, such as the one we are seeing in the case of the longevity insurance scheme, a longer time period for public consulation is given.

The Ministry of Trade & Industry should extend the period of public consultation. If not, it should provide compelling reasons to support the exceptionally short time period of public consultation.

Happiness,
Dharmendra Yadav

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Book Review: From Leonard To Leona

Over the years, women I have encountered in the course of my life have told me that child-bearing is the most intense experience that a woman will ever have - it inflicts extreme pain and its fruit is immensely satisfying.

For the transsexual, that same experience is the journey from manhood from womanhood (or vice versa).

Indeed, most of us know a lot about motherhood but very little about the life of being a daughter without the capacity to ever really be a mother.

It was this desire to learn more that prompted me to invest in a copy of Leona Lo's book, From Leonard to Leona: a Singapore transsexual's journey to womanhood.

But I was totally unpreprared for the emotional roller-coaster that I'd be going on.

While it is possible to read this book in one sitting, the sheer amount of emotions and personalities running through this book immobilised me such that I had to read this book over three sittings, with a day's break in between each.

There is the student who never finds a place among friends. There is the Christian search for truth. There is the child sexually abused. There is the grandson, nephew brother and son that never was. There is also the patient that undergoes an invasive life-threatening surgery.

There are the incomplete lovers. There are the cynical cold public servants. There are the sucky systems of society.

Simply put, there was just too much to swallow!

In spite of all these, the character that is Leona prevails or perhaps, more appropriately, unveils herself in her unique blend of humour and horror.

Leonard Lo's journey to be Leona Lo is a landmark contribution to the understanding of a lesser-known community in Singapore; a class of people within a class that the armed forces of this country has bastardised as "302".

Its premise has a familiar famishness that many a minority will relate to. Its ending has a sweet success that many a freedom fighter will relish.

From Leonard To Leona is a soulful story of hope and promise that should be read.

Happiness,
Dharmendra Yadav

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Doing The Impossible

Walt Disney once said, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

To those who have been wondering why this blog has been at a standstill for a few weeks now, that's exactly what I have been up to!

I am now back in school (since mid-August). I am pursuing a mandatory postgraduate diploma at a Singapore university. This is a course for legally-trained persons desiring Singapore court access rights.

The experience at the Singapore university is proving to be a uniquely Singapore experience, and I will certainly write more about this in time to come. But just to give an indication of what it's like -- three weeks into term, I had to get ready for an exam! It just ended a couple of days back and holidays are next week, so I can afford to take a breather.

In addition to the opportunites in school, I am working about 2 days a week. And amidst all these, I have had to make time for loved ones. So it is no surprise that I have had to minimise what I can share on this blog.

Nevertheless, the opportunity not to write here has been great, it's given me lots of time to reflect about the future of this blog, even with all these "happenings". Don't worry, I am not about to kill this blog. I still think this is an important space for developing one's thoughts and, it remains at least to me, a positive avenue for learning!

I was told of a trend that people are closing down their blogs but I guess that happens with all new things - once its novelty appears to wane, it is only normal for people to abandon certain preferences for other more exciting stuff.

To me, this only shows how impossible it is becoming to upkeep a blog and, yes, as someone once said, "it's kind of fun to do the impossible"!

Happiness,
Dharmendra Yadav

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How To Sustain Relationships

Some weeks ago, a friend sent me an instant message on the mobile phone. He asked, "How do you sustain a marriage?"

At first, I was taken aback by this question. What would I, an unmarried wildly single individual, know about sustaining a marriage?

But, since I am not the type to turn down the challenge of addressing difficult issues, I decided to help him find an answer.

As I prepare to mark three decades of my life tomorrow, I realise that I have had many relationships with different people - as a son to my parents; as a sibling to my brothers and sisters; as a colleague at the workplace; as a mate to those who went to school with me or those that I met randomly; and, in the past, as a partner to another, albeit unmarried.

With these different relationships have come unique lessons about how to sustain each of them.

I have realised that three things, which I personally call the HAT principles, apply to all these relationships:
a. Have a strong reason to sustain that relationship.
b. Act on goals to strengthen that relationship.
c. Trust those in the relationship to do the right thing.

I think these HAT principles would equally apply to sustaining a marriage. I will deal with each of these in turn.

STRONG REASON

It is important to have a strong reason to sustain the relationship. In doing so, one has to take personal responsibility for finding those reasons and to use those reasons as a call to arms!

We see this a lot of time when one is courting another. Very often, the courtship develops into something more because the person has strong reasons to take it forward.

More than a decade ago, I received a calendar from a life insurance company which had the following quote on one of its pages, "It is easy to make friends but difficult to keep them."

Since then, I have taken a lot of responsibility in keeping the friends that I make and I want to stay in touch with.

EXECUTE GOALS AND PLANS

A year back, I found the strong relationships I had with my university mates strained; these were relationships that are precious to me and I did not wish to lose.

I decided to organise regular lunches to enable me to meet them once a month. I do the same with several other friends at my Third Thursday Thinking Talkies.

My ex-boss has a habit of setting annual relationship goals with his wife. As part of these goals, they would plan very early in the year and set aside at least two weeks of their annual schedule to go on two or more holidays at places they mutually chose.

TRUST THOSE YOU LOVE

Some months ago, I made this point about trusting those you love, which I find increasingly tested among my friends.

Trust those you love to do the right thing. Questioning the motives or agendas of those who you love is not the way to run a relationship because it will only bring more negativity into the relationship.

You must accept that your loved one will from time to time make wrong decisions in life and these are learning milestones for those that make such decisions.

You must also accept that there are certain matters among those you love that you cannot change.

If one cannot accept these things, it is reasonable to just end the relationship.

It is important to bring positive energies into a relationship and focus on the things that one can change.

CONCLUSION

If you wish to sustain your relationship, use the HAT!

Happiness,
Dharmendra Yadav

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Section 377A Repeal Means Less Two Lives

In the last three years, my work in a cooperative and in the community have often brought me opportunities to engage with different school students in Singapore.

Through these opportunities, I have met at least three students who not only have done extremely well in school but have been also been very active in non-academic activities.

They have now left or are about to leave school but they continue to be very active in the community. Some of them have also been roped into Singapore's national youth movement.

Another common thread between these three students is that they are in same-sex relationships.

When I met person A, I thought she was in a healthy heterosexual relationship. But later, she shared with me that she was not very happy in that relationship and ended it.

She now tells me that she is much happier in a relationship with another female friend. She has also disclosed the existence of her homosexual relationship to her loved ones, who I understand have accepted her for what she is.

Person B was comfortable enough to introduce me to his partner recently. However, before that, I had been under the impression that he was heterosexual and was seeing someone. He still maintains a public profile where he continues to see a woman, who loves him.

Person C continues to tell me how he is dating different women and happily looking to find someone to eventually marry and settle down with her. Little does he know that I know through some mutual friends he is actually homosexual. But, nevertheless, I am happy to let things be until he is ready to trust and tell me more about who he really is.

Reading the book "SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century", I have found that these stories are not unique.

Author Ng Yi-Sheng also shares the difficulties he faced when getting people to share their stories in the book, "On seeing the finished stories, a few people actually withdrew, disoriented by a first-person account that they hadn't written with their own keyboards. Two people agreed to be interviewed, then cancelled because their fathers had just forbidden them to talk about their orientations."

Other friends have shared with me about how some marriages have broken because one of the partners a few years into the marriage discloses his or her homosexuality. Some of these persons are forced into such marriages by their parents.

Going back to the three students, I found it rather odd that a girl should be able to come to terms with herself more easily and be open about it. After all, it is our boys who go through National Service and are meant to have been trained to find the courage to face their deepest fears.

I also found it odd why some parents in Singapore would forbid their own children from speaking publicly about their own orientation or how one could demolish the sacred institution of marriage with such frivolousness.

And the more I think about it, the more I am convinced it has to do with Section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalises gross indecency between two males. (Of course, I am not ruling out other possibilities.)

Over the past months, since the review of the Penal Code was announced, many people have provided different reasons on why Section 377A must go.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has put his foot down on this issue and said people should not be penalised for a medical condition. He has expressed his hope that the day will come when Section 377A is repealed. His parliamentary colleague, Baey Yam Keng, has also come out to support a repeal. But their voices represent a minority in the largely conservative ruling party.

Alex Au, who runs the Yawningbread.Org website, remains strident in his view that Section 377A is discriminatory. He points to how Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal has on 17 July 2007 declared the law on homosexual buggery discriminatory and unconstitutional.

However, citing Singapore law, he notes, "The problem of course, is that the Singapore constitution does not explicitly forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation; in fact it does not even forbid discrimination on the basis of sex. So men and women can be treated differently under Singapore law, and indeed are. What is a crime for men need not be a crime for women. If we haven't even recognised that men and women are equal, this only shows how backward we are."

Likewise, the Council of The Law Society of Singapore has stated, "The retention of Section 377A in its present form cannot be justified...Private consensual homosexual conduct between adults does not cause harm recogniseable by the criminal law. Thus, regardless of one’s personal view of the morality or otherwise of such conduct, it should not be made a criminal offence."

Nominated Member of Parliament Siew Kum Hong has alternatively provided, "I truly do believe that a strong economic argument is the only way to get the Government to move on Section 377A in the near-future, and that an argument based purely on civil liberties will get us nowhere."

He suggests that it should be framed "in a lingo that will convince the Government" by showing "it's all about growth, jobs, money". He notes, "If you can make a convincing case that 377A is somehow affecting that, I think you've got a really good chance."

Frankly, some of these are not reasons for which I would have supported a repeal of Section 377A and, until recently, I was unconvinced about why Section 377A should go.

But now a key reason why I would support a repeal of Section 377A is because its departure would mean less people in Singapore will be cornered or compelled to lead two lives, and that more people will find it easier to be themselves.

It will enable one to stay focused on bettering oneself, instead of using that time to conjure foolish plans to keep one's sexuality secret.

Above all, the repeal of Section 377A will go some way in alleviating this distrust and climate of fear that exists in Singapore society.

A piece of legislation that lowers the self-respect a person has for oneself and forces one to live a double life; that induces the sons and daughters of Singapore to lie again and again to their loved ones; and that makes parents take unnecessary precautions to protect their children should have no place in Singapore.

It is time for Section 377A to go.

Happiness,
Dharmendra Yadav

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Monopoly, Moratorium, Minorities

In about 2 weeks, I will begin a process, which will last about 2 years and will eventually see me being called to the Singapore Bar.

After that, I will be able to represent another person in the Singapore courts.

As part of that process, I need apply one year in advance for pupillage in a law firm. This usually involves shadowing a senior lawyer, who helps you achieve certain learning outcomes.

Competition for pupillage is very strong in the top firms and it is very much like applying for a few lucrative positions, with thousands of other graduates.

The only difference here is, because of the caps the Singapore government imposes on law school demographics, you compete with far less applicants and have a better chance of success.

Places in these top law firms usually get snapped up very fast.

I understand the only local law school imposes a moratorium on such applications, that is no student is allowed to apply before a certain date. Those who break the moratorium usually face a penalty.

An excerpt from the directive local law school, according to one blogger, reads as follows: "In order to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity when applying for pupillage, students will have to sign a Letter of Undertaking stating that they agree to not apply for a pupillage position until the class imposed moratorium has been lifted... Any student found to be in breach of this Undertaking before the Moratorium Date will likely jeopardize his/her pupillage position in the Law Firm. As such, students are highly encouraged to apply for a pupillage position at the Law Firm of their choosing on the Moratorium Date or soon after."

I am told that, because of the moratorium, the human resource teams of several large law firms are forced to work a lot harder.

Interviews and offers for places need to be made within days or valuable talent will be lost to other firms.

I also learnt that from a lawyer working in one law firm that her firm held back interviews and offers for places this year. What happened was something I would personally consider unprofessional as much as it may be well-intended - some law students turned up at the door demanding to be interviewed.

To me, such a moratorium smacks of anti-competitive practice, and I hope a local law student will consider having this practice escalated to the Competition Commission of Singapore for a view.

Of course, one could argue that it's not anti-competitive since the whole process is voluntary and students are always entitled to opt out. Some students, who form a minority of the law school population, choose to opt out -- bravo to them!

Fortunately, the moratorium does not apply to law graduates, who studied overseas.

But what it sometimes means is that, by the time some overseas law graduates apply, pupillage vacancies have already been taken by local law students.

Happiness,
Dharmendra Yadav

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