Penal Laws Essay

Question: Describe about the Penal Laws and Issue? Answer: Definition: In according with the section 377A of the Singapore Penal code, if any man, in open consign or in confidential performs any activity of coarse licentiousness along with another person of male gender, then both of the individuals shall be penalized in terms of incarceration or imprisonment for a term that might be sentenced upto two years. This meticulous provision of the disquiet statute comprised with the act relating to sexual activity among men that is gay sex. This provision does not applicable to female persons. Acts relating to homosexuality is a crime in accordance with the Singapore penal statute. The scope of this section also contains the acts relating to oral sex. Women are totally excused from this section of the concern statute (Ben-Naim, 2010). Issues: In respect of section 377A of the Penal Code of Singapore a moral question always comes into the mind of the adjudicators that whether the homosexuals in the society should have the right to do sex in private place or not. Some supplementary issues occurs in this regard like the actual value or role of sexual activity in our society, the personal rights of the individuals ought to be interfered or not, is it acceptable for the society that human beings are going against the rule of the nature. These vulnerable issues are not going be solve by restricting ourselves within the territory of legal phenomena (Chan, Wright and Yeo, 2011). From the ethical point of view it may be observed that performing any act for own pleasure by going against the rule of the nature ought not to be the ethical perspective of a human being. But on the other hand it may be an appreciable ethic of a human being that not to make any interference to the personal life of another person (McSherry, Norrie and Bronitt, 2009). From the social perspective it can be originated that a person is at a liberty to do or perform anything without infringing any of the right of any other person of the society. In a nation like USA homosexuality has been legally recognized but in the current social phenomena of Singapore homosexuality has not been adapted yet. The concern provision regulates the sexual orientation of a large number of persons in the society preferring homosexuality. But if the concern section of the statute is not applied to the society then it may change the present scenario of the society (Pieth and Aiolfi, 2004). Arguments for upholding Sec. 377A: The submissions against the section 377A have been rejected by the highest court of Singapore, on the ground that Sec. 377A is a contradictory provision to that of the law of the land that is the Constitution of the country. The Ld. Court of law in its 101 page judgment unambiguously mentioned that sec. 377A does not contravene the provisions of the constitution so it is not unconstitutional, as it does not disobey Art. 9 and Art 12 of the constitution of Singapore (Pieth and Aiolfi, 2004). The Ld. Court focused upon the legal principles and lawfulness of the concern provision. The court of law has avoided those portions of the submission which included the moral and social ethics. The Ld. Court of law held that the concern section is not violating to that of the Art 9 of the constitution as in this article the right of a person relating to life and liberty is mentioned that signifies the right of a person from any illegal internment, it does not mean that a person shall be at a libe rty of personal autonomy (Ginsburg and Moustafa, 2008). The Honorable Court of law also held that the Art 12 of the constitution does not consist within its purview the scope of section 377A, as the said article concerns with the discrimination made depending upon race, religion, and place of birth, that is clearly mentioned in that article and there is nothing specifies in relation to the sexual orientation or gender discrimination. The Ld. Court of law with three adjudicators has observed that section 377A of the Penal code does not infringe any of the provisions laid down in the laws relating to human rights of the country and this provision of penal statute is completely constitutional. Homosexuality is at the present time an escalating hazard for the conventional society of Singapore and it ought not be abided and the ruling should be compassionate to the ethical principles of more persons not the smaller ones, and the edicts are enacted by taking into consideration of the inte rests of the persons. As on 29th October, 2014, section 377A has been declared constitutional and totally valid by the appellate court of Singapore (Miller, 2005). Arguments against upholding sec. 377A: The constitution of the country promotes equality among all the citizens and mentions that there shall be no discrimination among the public. Section 377A makes discrimination among men and women of the same society as this section is applicable only upon the male members of the society. Sec. 377A has been challenged before the court of law for the first time by Tan Eng Hong as he was caught red handed in the course of doing oral sex in a public toilet. After two years of this incident a gay couple namely Kenneth Che and Gary Lim challenged this provision before the court of law. The argument made by them that Art 9 of the constitution ensures the right of a person to life and liberty and Art 12 of the constitution ensures equality before the law and equal protection of law among all the citizens of the country, whilst section 377A not only infringes the right to life and personal liberty of the citizens but it also violates the right to equality before the law as it is promoting sex ual discrimination among the citizen because this section is applicable only upon the men not upon the women of the society. Apart from that section 377A also violates the provisions of human rights, these rights are ensured by various international conventions. Criminalization of a person depending upon the sexual orientation is violating the human rights provided by the UN (Langwith, 2008). References Ben-Naim, A. 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