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SINGAPORE — A High Court judge has rejected a bid by former transport minister S. Iswaran to compel the prosecution to provide conditioned statements of all the 56 witnesses it has lined up for his upcoming trial on 35 charges. A conditioned statement isHigh Court rejects Iswaran's bid to compel prosecution to provide statements of trial witnesses
SINGAPORE — A High Court judge has rejected a bid by former transport minister S. Iswaran to compel the prosecution to provide conditioned statements of all the 56 witnesses it has lined up for his upcoming trial on 35 charges. A conditioned statement is a mode of giving evidence in a written statement, rather than oral testimony, often to expedite court proceedings. On July 19, Justice Vincent Hoong found that the prosecution is only required to include such statements of witnesses that it intends to admit at the trial. He added that he was unable to accept defence arguments that there was an abuse of process or serious injustice caused to Iswaran in this case. Iswaran's lawyers, led by Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, had argued before Justice Hoong on July 5 that the prosecution should provide conditioned statements of all its witnesses as part of its pre-trial disclosure obligation under the law. The prosecution, led by Deputy Attorney-General Tai Wei Shyong, argued that the law only requires the prosecution to provide those conditioned statements that are intended to be used during the trial. Read more