Response to Anil Nayar, Singapore’s High Commissioner to Australia

by Hon. Lex Lasry AM KC

In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald of 26 March 2025, Anil Nayar, Singapore’s High Commissioner to Australia, published a response to a piece written by me on Singapore’s death penalty in December 2024 and a piece written by Zach Hope in March 2025 taking a similar approach. The High Commissioner’s recent article was entitled ‘Singapore’s approach to drugs works for Singaporeans.’

It should first be said that the High Commissioner has completely missed the point of what I wrote last year.

His response, four months later, opens by saying that my piece was “written about Singapore’s strict approach to drugs.” Wrong – I was writing about the death penalty. I have no issue with a strict approach to drug offending, at least at the high level of offending. There are other arguments to be had about levels of offending and mandatory sentencing, but my concern is about judicial murder.

I agree with the High Commissioner that drugs are a significant problem for many societies, including Australia. In my career as a criminal lawyer and Supreme Court judge in Australia, drugs and/or alcohol are involved in a majority of crimes I have had to deal with. 

However, what I do not agree with is that drug offending (or any other offending for that matter) is an Old Testament-type justification for putting people to death by the grotesque method of hanging as occurs in Singapore – something that should have been consigned to history decades ago.  In my opinion, the death penalty in any form reflects adversely on the degree of civilisation in countries that use it, including Singapore. Thus, my issue is with Governments that kill people, wherever they are.

In addition, and dealing with the justification that the death penalty is a deterrent, there are numerous studies which debunk that argument.  Some of these can be seen on the Death Penalty Information Center web site. There are many other sources that similarly debunk the argument. I would be happy to travel to Singapore and debate the proponents of the death penalty and cite this material in detail.

One wonders why, if the death penalty is such an effective deterrent, there is still drug offending in Singapore? You would think that, after 50 years of executing low-level drug traffickers under the Misuse of Drugs Act, it would have stopped altogether. Even the High Commissioner must measure his claim about that saying that “Singapore’s policies have worked to create a safe, stable, and relatively drug-free society,” whatever “relatively” means.

Further, the fact that ordinary citizens polled in Singapore or anywhere else support the death penalty or think it is a deterrent does not make it so.

I applaud efforts at rehabilitation for drug “abusers” everywhere. I assume the High Commissioner means drug “consumers” with an addiction, but it needs to be borne in mind that many of those executed in Singapore are “mules” or “pawns”, also with an addiction in a much bigger drug trade.

So, I reject that I have misrepresented anything about the death penalty in Singapore, as asserted by the High Commissioner. The death penalty remains a cruel and barbaric punishment on offenders and their families for no societal gain. I adhere to the sentiment of the great jurist of the United States Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “If I were Queen, there would be no death penalty.” I will express my opposition to it everywhere as long as I am able.