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Singapore will table new laws to strengthen investigations into companies suspected of contributing to transboundary haze. The proposed changes will give independent assessors full access to firms' operations, supply chains and corporate relationships. Ministers have met senior executives from 10 firms potentially linked to the haze, warning that companies must cooperate with investigations or face legal consequences. The government says its aim is to establish facts and hold those responsible to account. Sabrina Ng reports.
<br>After twelve years of doing practically nothing under the existing framework, time is clearly not a constraint that justifies rushing the process or cutting corners. There is absolutely no excuse to bypass a fair judicial process and the fundamental presumption of innocence. Actively deploying economic coercion to cripple an entity's operational lifelines outside the courtroom strips away the foundational checks and balances that protect a society from arbitrary overreach.
<br>Furthermore, this shift from the Rule of Law to rule by executive decree carries profound international risks. If a nation normalizes using administrative orders to penalize foreign-linked operations without a court conviction, foreign countries will inevitably retaliate by applying similar arbitrary rules against our own overseas corporate interests. Once standard legal processes are discarded in favor of raw executive power, there will be no defense against reciprocal state bullying, introducing systemic instability and chaos into global economic governance.