Academic Donald Low apologises to Shanmugam for comments on ‘populism’ in drafting laws

SINGAPORE: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Associate Dean Donald Low has apologised to Law Minister K Shanmugam for a Facebook post, apparently criticising the minister’s comments that penalties for crime must reflect public opinion.

This comes a day after Mr Shanmugam said Mr Low had “seriously misconstrued” what he had said.

In a Facebook post on Friday afternoon (Apr 28), Mr Low reproduced an email he sent to Mr Shanmugam in which he apologised for causing any trouble or offence.

He said that his previous post was “mostly a reaction” to the headline of the TODAY article which he thought did not represent Mr Shanmugam’s position accurately. “I had read the piece in full, but didn’t give your comments sufficient attention in my post. I apologise for that,” wrote Mr Low.

In an exclusive interview with TODAY on Monday, Mr Shanmugam said that the Government must pay heed to how society feels about the punishment meted out in criminal cases. “But it doesn’t mean automatically you agree with it. You must assess it, whether it is also fair. So there are two parts to it — one, whether it is fair; two, what does the public believe is right,” he said.

Mr Low shared the TODAY article on his Facebook page that same day, stating that “making laws on the basis of public opinion is populism by another name”.

On Friday, Mr Low said his original post was not targeted at Mr Shanmugam, but rather his own take on what was wrong with a criminal justice system based on public opinion. “I was trying to point out that public opinion, even if it’s a factor in criminal punishment, is highly contingent, often irrational and subject to sudden changes,” he wrote.

“I accept that my post, in the context of the TODAY article carrying your comments, might be viewed as a criticism of you or your comments. That wasn’t my intention at all,” he added.