Law Minister reiterates that 'not guilty in law' does not mean 'innocent'
This is a classic case of schizophrenic between the executive and the legislature.
When in parliament, the ministers discuss and set laws which are fair. They should not mix up their roles as "government" because otherwise you have a situation where you set laws OR not to set laws to make sure that the governing part is protected.
They should put on the hat of parliamentarians and comment on whether such a law would be fair or not. Keep the government outside parliament.
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Govt defends A-G’s stand
Law Minister reiterates that ‘not guilty in law’ does not mean ‘innocent’
By K.C.Vijayan
Aug 26, 2008
A MAN is charged with a crime. After a trial, he is acquitted and goes free. Does that mean he is innocent?
Not necessarily.
Witnesses may have changed their evidence, or a technicality may have got in the way. What this amounts to: The prosecution is unable to convince the judge that the man had done the deed.
And once there is any reasonable doubt as to an accused’s guilt, duty requires that the judge acquit him.
Law Minister K. Shanmugam told Parliament yesterday: ‘It is entirely possible for a person to have committed acts which amount to a crime and yet, there may be no conviction. I emphasise this: No serious lawyer will question this possibility.’
He was responding to two lawyer-MPs, who wanted him to clarify the position of the Attorney-General on the subject of acquittals. The issue has been up in the air since mid-May, when Attorney-General Walter Woon stated that an acquitted person may be ‘not guilty’ in law, but ‘guilty’ in fact.
Two months later, Appeal Court Judge V. K. Rajah weighed in on the issue. He did not refer to what the Attorney-General said, but made it clear that such comments could undermine confidence in the courts’ verdicts and the criminal justice system, which is based on the doctrine of ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
Not so, said Mr Shanmugam.
He described the presumption of innocence as an ‘important and fundamental principle’ which the Government is ‘absolutely committed to upholding’.
‘There is no intention to question or qualify that principle in any way. I am surprised that any doubt should at all have arisen about this.’
The Government has no intention of encroaching on the functions of the courts either, he added. ‘It is for the courts, and the courts alone, to exercise judicial power and decide the question of guilt, in a trial.’
The Attorney-General’s position is similar to that of his predecessor, Mr Chan Sek Keong, now the Chief Justice, Mr Shanmugam said.
CJ Chan had pointed out in a lecture in 1996 that the trial process was designed to prove guilt, not innocence.
Quoting from the lecture, Mr Shanmugam reported the then Attorney-General as saying that the presumption of innocence amounts to saying an accused person is ‘legally innocent’.
‘It is simply an expression that in a criminal trial, the prosecution is obliged to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt,’ said Mr Shanmugam.
The system in places such as England and Scotland is similar. In fact, Scotland has a third verdict - ‘not proven’ - besides ‘guilty’ and ‘not guilty’. While ‘not guilty’ is a positive declaration of innocence, ‘not proven’ implies that guilt has not been conclusively proven.
Even as he stuck to his guns, Mr Shanmugam cautioned against jumping the other way. ‘Just as a person acquitted may not necessarily be innocent, he may well also be, in fact, innocent.’
Lawyers The Straits Times contacted said the concepts of legal innocence and factual guilt have always been there, and agreed with Mr Shanmugam that accused persons may sometimes go free.
Association of Criminal Lawyers Singapore president Subhas Anandan said he had defended clients in the past who were acquitted for one reason or other, but whom he felt were guilty in fact.
‘An accused person is not going to bother if he is factually guilty. All he wants is to be be able to walk away free.’
The reverse also applies: where a person is factually innocent but legally guilty. ‘This happens where the accused wants to plead guilty to a lesser charge and end the case... because his interest is to walk away as quickly as possible.’
Taiwan prosecutor to head to Singapore amid Chen probe - report
08.20.08
TAIPEI (XFN-ASIA) - A Taiwanese prosecutor is due to head to Singapore to investigate alleged money-laundering by former president Chen Shui-bian and his family, the United Daily News reported.
Prosecutor Ching Chi-jen will probe allegations that the Chen family had transferred funds to Switzerland via the Singapore bank accounts of Chen's brother-in-law Wu Ching-mao, it said
An official at the Taipei district prosecutor's office said Ching will attend a conference in Singapore this month but declined to comment on the investigation.
The report came after Singapore's de facto embassy in Taiwan issued a statement Monday offering to assist Taiwan in the probe.
The prosecutor recently returned from Switzerland to help officials there in their investigation into money-laundering apparently implicating Chen's son Chen Chih-chung and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching.
Thirty-one million US dollars were sent to Huang's Swiss bank accounts in 2007, according to copies of Swiss documents obtained by a Taiwan lawmaker.
The former president has admitted that his wife Wu Shu-chen had wired abroad 20 mln usd from his past campaign funds, saying she had done so without his knowledge. But he has denied money-laundering.
Chen, his wife, son, daughter-in-law and brother-in-law were all named defendants in the case and barred from leaving the island.
But the ex-president's son and son's wife flew to the US several days before the scandal broke last week.
U.S. Says Banks on `Problem List' Rose 30% in Quarter
By Alison Vekshin
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said its ``problem list'' of banks increased 30 percent in the second quarter to the highest total in five years as more commercial real-estate loans were overdue.
The list had 117 banks as of June 30, up from 90 in the first quarter and the highest since mid-2003, the agency said today in its quarterly report without naming any institutions. FDIC-insured lenders reported net income of $4.96 billion, down 87 percent from $36.8 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
``More banks will come on the list as credit problems worsen,'' FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said at a news conference in Washington.
Regulators are adding to the list as bank assets, liquidity and other fiscal measures weaken. Nine banks have failed this year, including California-based mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc., which the FDIC is running as a successor institution, IndyMac Federal Bank FSB.
IndyMac's failure will cost the U.S. deposit insurance fund about $8.9 billion, exceeding a $4 billion to $8 billion estimate, said Diane Ellis, the associate director of financial- risk management. The FDIC discovered additional insured deposits and had time to value the assets, Ellis said.
Second-Lowest Earnings
Second-quarter earnings fell from $19.3 billion in the previous quarter, driven by higher provisions for loan losses, the FDIC said. It was the second-lowest net income reported since the fourth quarter of 1991 behind the $600 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2007, the agency said.
``The results were pretty dismal, and we don't see a return to the high earnings levels of previous years any time soon,'' Bair said.
Funds set aside by banks to cover loan losses more than quadrupled to $50.2 billion from $11.4 billion in the year- earlier quarter.
Loans 90 days or more overdue, deemed troubled by the FDIC, jumped 20 percent to $162 billion from $136 billion in the first quarter, the FDIC said. Real-estate loans accounted for almost 90 percent of the rise in the past three quarters, the agency said.
The deposit insurance fund fell 14 percent to $45.2 billion and the reserve ratio, or balance divided by insured deposits, was 1.01 percent. The FDIC is required to shore up the fund when the ratio falls below 1.15 percent.
Higher Premiums
The agency in October will consider a plan to replenish the account that will likely include an increase in the premiums charged banks, Bair said.
A greater share of the increase will be shifted to ``riskier institutions so that safer institutions won't be unduly burdened,'' she said.
Lenders on the ``problem list'' had assets of $78.3 billion at the end of the second quarter, triple the $26.3 billion in the first quarter, the agency said. The FDIC said IndyMac's assets represented $32 billion of the increase.
Many banks on the list have high levels of commercial real- estate loans, especially in construction and development loans, said John Corston, the FDIC's associate director of large bank supervision. The number of problem institutions will continue to rise, he said.
``Problem institutions continue to be scattered across the country,'' Corston said. ``However, we expect to see some migration to areas experiencing the greatest stress.''
Regulators rate banks based on their asset quality, earnings, liquidity and other fiscal measures. Banks are ranked on a numerical scale, with 1 being the highest and 5 the lowest. A rating of 4 or 5 places a bank on the ``problem'' list.
The FDIC is a Washington-based bank regulator that insures deposits at 8,451 institutions with $13.3 trillion in assets.
Mortgage fraud still soaring
A crackdown on underwriting has failed to halt an explosion of fraudulent home loans.
By Les Christie
August 26, 2008
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With the housing market in turmoil and lending standards tougher than ever, you'd think that the kind of unscrupulous activity that helped plunge the industry into crisis would be a thing of the past.
You'd be wrong. Mortgage fraud is still soaring, according to a new report from the Mortgage Asset Research Institute (MARI), a division of ChoicePoint. (CPS)
The study found that the number of fraudulent loans issued during the first three months of 2008 skyrocketed 42% compared with the same period in 2007.
The big jump was a surprise even to MARI. "We were stunned," said spokeswoman Jennifer Butts. "It shows that some folks [in the industry] are desperate."
Loan applications are at an eight-year low, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, and deals are harder than ever to come by for real estate professionals. Loan originators, real estate agents and property appraisers are all scrambling for clients.
Making things even more difficult, mortgage lenders have tightened underwriting standards after getting clobbered with soaring delinquencies and foreclosures.
Now, the credit histories of many applicants are not good enough to get approved for mortgages, except through some creativity - or chicanery - by brokers and loan officers.
The most common type of fraud that MARI found pertained to employment history and income. Many applications exaggerated how much borrowers earned and misrepresented their job descriptions.
The biggest increase came from a jump in the number of undisclosed or incorrectly reported debts, liens and judgments.
Most fraud involves average home buyers whose lending officers feel compelled to tweak their applications. But some involves criminal enterprises.
Cases of identity theft accounted for 6% of all mortgage fraud in Illinois, for example. In many of these deals, crime rings use phony identities to obtain mortgages on properties they don't own, then take the cash and vanish.
Same industry, same problems
"The reality is that the industry's structure has not changed," said Bill Garber, a director of government affairs for the Appraisal Institute trade group. "Mortgage brokers are paid on commission; loan officers are rewarded for volume. There are the same pressures to get things done."
The regulatory agencies, he said, are overwhelmed. But the FBI did step up its efforts to combat mortgage fraud recently. In June, its Mortgage Fraud Task Force arrested more than 400 mortgage brokers, lenders, appraisers and other industry insiders responsible for more than $1 billion in losses.
Despite these efforts, MARI doesn't expect things to change any time soon. "Loan application misrepresentation continues to plague the industry," the group said in a press statement. "Mortgage fraud will not disappear - in fact, it is expected to significantly grow, evolve and penetrate new areas within the industry."
MARI compiled its statistics from data submitted by its clients, which include all of the biggest names in the lending industry: Fannie Mae (FAM) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) - the government sponsored mortgage giants - as well as private lenders Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and J.P.MorganChase (JPM, Fortune 500) as well as scores of smaller lenders.
Leading states
Florida had the largest volume of mortgage fraud in the first three months of 2008, accounting for about 24% of the national total.
Second was California, which was followed by Illinois, Maryland and Michigan, all of which had about the same number of incidents.
The Miami metro area was ground zero for mortgage fraud during the period; it accounted for nearly half of all of Florida's incidents while the Los Angeles area produced 52% of California's.
Because of agreements with its clients, MARI does not reveal the total numbers of fraud incidents.
Until systems are implemented to foster the development of ethical, responsible mortgage originators, said Garber, the "bad actors" will continue to find places in the lending industry and mortgage fraud will go on as before.
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