Law professor Eugene Tan said that regardless of the outcome of the investigation, Mr. Iswaran is “in serious doubt”.
“His political position will be greatly affected. The ruling party will have to decide whether to present him in the next general elections, even if he is authorized by the CPIB and the AGC,” he said.
PERMISSION OF ABSENCE
Dr Eugene Tan, who is an associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University, added that being placed on leave suggests there is “credible prior evidence that laws may have been broken”.
“To avoid the investigations being compromised should Mr Iswaran continue to exercise his powers and duties, it is right for Prime Minister Lee to place him on leave to maintain the integrity of the ongoing investigations,” he said.
Dr Gillian Koh, deputy director of research at the Institute of Policy Studies, pointed out some differences between this CPIB investigation and the recently concluded one on Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister , Vivian Balakrishnan, to lease state property.
One is that the CPIB had brought this case to light, unlike the Ridout road matter, where the prime minister had asked the anti-corruption agency to establish whether there was any crime.
“If there was anything in the latter, and the CPIB found that there was a prima facie case after initial investigations, we can be sure that it would rise to the status of Minister Iswaran’s current case,” Dr Koh said. “In this case, the CPIB found no wrongdoing in Ridout’s.”
