Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Pronouced Guilty

I am not going to talk or even bother to debate about what was the turnout in Hong Lim Park last Saturday. Be it 3000 or 7000, people showed up, showed solidarity to the cause is enough for the PM to consider a gracious exit in the whole Roy Nerng debacle. while $5000 might seems less than loose change, it is enough to feed a family of four for quite some time, even in Food court.

No, I will not talk about what Roy Nerng suggested, there are enough people out there debating on this topic, and seriously, before Roy said his piece, I have formed my opinion.

What really got me interested is that Roy has been found guilty and being punished!
No, the trial has not started yet. But his Employer, Tan Tock Seng Hospital has past the verdict and pronouced him guilty.

While there are still bloggers out there either taking side for or against him, there is 1 thing that has not come to pass. Roy has yet been pronouced guilty by a court of law and he is not yet guilty of defamation. At least not legally.

What makes it interesting is of following statement by TTSH

In a statement, the hospital said Mr Ngerng, a patient coordinator at the Communicable Disease Centre, was found to have misused his time and resources while at work to pursue "personal and non-job-related interests".
"Mr Ngerng’s conduct was incompatible with the values and standards we expect of our employees. While our staff are free to pursue their personal interests outside work, they must conduct themselves properly, honourably and with integrity. In particular, they cannot defame someone else without basis, which essentially means knowingly stating a falsehood to the public," it stated.


I am just wondering if Mr Ngerng has been using hospital time to blog. Or could it be that he organised the whole Hong Lim event during office hour. Or that he skipped work to go to the Event on Saturday?

The point about defaming someone, well, isn't that the courts job to bring him to trial to prove if he is guilty or not? Or I guess in this case, TTSH knows that he is guilty or is more than certain that Mr Ngerng will be found guilty. But in this case, they had pronouced him guilty as charge.


And if you are wondering why there is such an unilateral move by the hospital, just read the following and form your own conclusion

Separately, the Ministry of Health issued a statement, saying it supports TTSH's decision to terminate My Ngerng's contract, as his "actions show a lack of integrity and are incompatible with the values and standards of behaviour expected of hospital employees."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

TTSH did not say Roy is guilty. Roy was dismissed because of his behavior, regardless of his guilt.

Roy himself had admitted on Facebook that he was finding it hard to concentrate at work. Which makes him dangerous and unsuitable for working in a healthcare institution.

Please be reasonable.

Anonymous said...

In Singapore, politics seem to play a larger part in some of the companies and institutions than what we even thought is possible or should be happening. This is really frustrating. One recent eg is the NTU professor who could not renew his tenure. For that, I have cancelled all my alumni links with the university for I cannot agree with the behavior of a supposedly institution of learning. What Roy could be undergoing is harassment or pressure from his management which could also have an impact on his work. We don't know for sure. Let Roy explain. Don't simplify things. Don't assume. It is easy to make judgements based on simple assumptions. But, this is Singapore and PAP is able to exert influence in ways that we are still discovering. So, let's discover before we disrupt.

Anonymous said...

In civil cases, there is no notion of guilt, unlike criminal cases. There is only the notion of correctness, or fault eg who breached a contract and who did not, who was at fault for causing a traffic accident and thus should pay for the damages, etc.

Guilt is a criminal concept, for the purpose of punishment. Fault is a civil concept, for the purpose of obtaining redress through compensation.