3 judges releases sentencing benchmarks for NS defaulters

[taxico]

1. Appeal court judges (the Chief Justice, an appellate judge and a supreme court judge) modified the lower court sentencing benchmarks previously set by the High Court in Feb 2016.

i. ...the old sentencing benchmarks were tiered to three scenarios: Whether an offender was arrested or surrendered, if he claimed trial, and how he performed during NS.

ii. ...offenders should not be treated more leniently because they surrendered themselves or performed exceptionally during conscription before their cases were heard.

“Exceptional NS performance, which happens after the conduct constituting the offence, reduces neither the defaulter’s culpability nor the harm he had caused by his offence.”

iii. ...the sentence to be meted out to an NS defaulter would not increase linearly with the length of his period of default.

Rather, the rate of increase in the sentence would be amplified with longer periods of default, to “reflect the decline in a person’s physical fitness with age and to create a progressive disincentive for NS defaulters to delay their return to resolve their offences”.

2. Starting point for mandatory custodial sentence (before aggravating and mitigating factors are considered):

i. The custodial threshold would be crossed when one defaults for two years, with a starting point jail sentence of two months. Each additional year of default would see the sentence increase by half a month.

ii. For those who default for seven to 10 years, jail terms start at five months, with an increase of one month for each additional year of default.

iii. Those who evade NS for 11 to 16 years could be sentenced to 14 to 22 months’ jail, with two months’ imprisonment added for each year of default.

iv. Jail terms of 24 months to the maximum of 36 months would apply to defaulters of 17 to 23 or more years, the judges said, as they would not only have evaded the whole of their full-time NS obligations, but also their reservist obligations..

3. as this is a Court of Appeal decision, it is likely it will bind the lower courts for the foreseeable future.

http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/hi ... defaulters

good luck, gents!

[PNGMK]

This is the one that some of our longer NS evader-posters should keep in mind:

Ang’s jail term was increased from 24 months to 33 months after he completely evaded his NS obligations. He had remained outside Singapore without a valid exit permit for 23½ years — the longest possible default period under the Enlistment Act — and timed his return to the country after he turned 40, when he could no longer serve NS.

In summary there's almost no mitigating circumstances that they will accept and the sentences are very easy to calculate now. In a way this will put some posters mind at ease (i.e. there is no longer any question that they WILL be imprisoned on return):

0 to 2 years absence: No prison
2 years to 7 years: 2 months plus 2 weeks for ever year absent
7 years to 10 years: 5 months plus 1 month for every year absent
11 to 16 years: 14 months to22 months with 2 months for every year absent
17 to 23 years or more: 24 months to 36 months (maximum reached).


I am pleased that the ambiguity around the possibility of prison sentences has been clarified. No free pass.

[PNGMK]

I created a chart - it's interesting that there are some severe inflexions. I've also had to guess at the increment in a few places (i.e. +17 years = 3 months increment- it may be less).