Good news, bad news?

Among the changes proposed to the Parliamentary Elections Act (PEA) is the removal of all references to "relevant persons" in the PEA. Minister for Law K Shanmugam explains this "means that the current blanket prohibition on individuals operating non-party political websites will be lifted". This change brings both good and (possibly) bad news to socio-political bloggers like yours truly.

The good news is, websites that publish socio-political commentary (like this one) will be allowed to report election-related news in the next General Elections. The requirement that all political sites must register with MDA is also lifted. This effectively removes the gag order that was previously in place where "election advertising" is concerned, which is defined by the PEA as follows:

"election advertising" means any poster, banner, notice, circular, handbill, illustration, article, advertisement or other material that can reasonably be regarded as intended —

• (a) to promote or procure the electoral success at any election for one or more identifiable political parties, candidates or groups of candidates; or
• (b) to otherwise enhance the standing of any such political parties, candidates or groups of candidates with the electorate in connection with any election,

and such material shall be election advertising even though it can reasonably be regarded as intended to achieve any other purpose as well and even though it does not expressly mention the name of any political party or candidate, but excludes any button, badge, pen, pencil, balloon and any other thing prescribed by the Minister by notification in the Gazette

I'm not a lawyer nor have I undergone any legal training, but that looks narrowly defined enough for most experienced bloggers to still blog during the campaigning period of the GE. However, this part of the PEA worries me:

(2)   For the purposes of this Act —

(a) the reference to electoral success at any election shall be a reference —

• (i) in relation to any political party, to the return at any such election of candidates or groups of candidates standing in the name of the party; and
• (ii) in relation to candidates or groups of candidates, to their return at any such election;

(b) the reference to the doing of anything mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) of the definition of “election advertising” shall include doing so by prejudicing the electoral prospects at the election of other political parties, candidates or groups of candidates or (as the case may be) by prejudicing the standing with the electorate of other political parties, candidates or groups of candidates

That's the possible bad news. I find the possibility of a broad interpretation of the bolded section to be worrying, and if any lawyers wish to chime in, please feel free to do so. On my part, I will try to get some insight into the reading from trained professionals before I feel comfortable enough to comment further. You can read the minister's speech during the Second Reading of the Bill here.

Comments

[Shawn Lim]

Wow. This is big big news for us socio-political bloggers. But I totally have no clue what the 'bad news' mean.

[Callan Tham]

I realised I was not as clear as I'd like, and after reading the statute again, I might have completely missed the point. I'll follow up with another post tomorrow.