Read Alex Au's thoughts on this issue. This is more indepth and intelligent:
More thoughts on the 'Not a procession' judgement
http://www.yawningbread.org/
Much as the Straits Times tried to give the government front page treatment, with a big photo of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong meeting with new Japanese PM Hatoyama, for politically interested Singaporeans, the big story yesterday was the acquittal of five members and supporters of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) over a charge of holding an illegal procession.
On 16 September 2007, Gandhi Ambalan, John Tan, Chee Siok Chin, Chong Kai Xiong and Yap Keng Ho had walked from Hong Lim Green to Parliament, the Istana, finally reaching Queenstown Remand Prison where party leader Chee Soon Juan was then incarcerated. At different times during the walk, there were varying numbers of people, but these were the five hauled to court for what the prosecutor called a "procession".
District Judge John Ng didn't agree. He said the circuitous walk undertaken by these persons did not constitute a procession in the ordinary meaning of the word.
It is an interesting enough decision that I will now, for the record, quote significant chunks of. The judge began by noting that although both the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act, hereinafter called "the Act", and its subsidiary legislation, the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) (Assemblies and Processions) Rules, hereinafter called "the Rules", used the word "procession", it was not defined.
In the absence of any definition provided in the legislation, the starting point to understand the word "procession" would be to consider the natural and ordinary meaning of the word.
The Cambridge International Dictionary of English gives the meaning of procession as "a line of people who are all walking or travelling in the same direction esp. in a formal way as part of a religious ceremony or public celebration." It gives the examples of wedding and funeral processions. The Oxford English Reference Dictionary states it as "a number of people or vehicles etc. moving forward in orderly succession, esp. at a ceremony, demonstration, or festivity". The Collins English Dictionary puts it this way:
1. the act of proceeding in a regular formation
2. a group of people or things moving forwards in an orderly, regular, or ceremonial manner.
The meanings given by the various dictionaries for the word "procession" cite several key features of a procession and these are:
* A group of people moving together.
* As part of an event such as wedding, funeral, ceremony, demonstration or festivity.
* The manner of the movement is described as in a formal way, in orderly succession, in a regular formation.
The Prosecution's position appears to be that so long as a group of 5 or more people walked from one point to another point in a public place to commemorate an event, the people in that group had participated in a procession for the purposes of the Act and the Rules. I am not able to agree with such a simplistic interpretation to the word "procession". I am not saying that there has to be a structured way for the group to move from point A to point B before it can be considered a "procession". It is conceivable that a procession could be formed by a group of people merely moving en masse down a street without any formation or definite shape to it.
The difficulty in this case is deciding whether what the defendants had done on the afternoon of 16 September 2007 amounted to being a procession. The collective evidence of the witnesses of the prosecution and defence showed that the group of people comprising SDP members, a few bloggers and some journalists had walked mainly on the pedestrian pathways from Hong Lim Park to the vicinity of the Istana, using pavements and sidewalks. The people in this group were at times walking in pairs, at times singly and at times in smaller groups. They had walked casually and ad hoc stops were made for pamphlet distribution and toilet breaks.
Other than a few of them wearing similar white T-shirts with the words "Democracy Now" and "Freedom Now", the group did not attract any significant attention of the public while walking. They did not carry any of the usual paraphernalia associated with a protest or a rally march such as placards and banners.
The judge was quick to say however, that a body of people could still amount to a procession even if they didn't carry banners or placards, if it exhibited other features of a procession.
