Earlier today, the National Solidarity Party (“NSP”) lodged an Appeal to the President of Singapore.
We are appealing against the refusal by the Minister for Communications and Information (“MCI”) to renew the newspaper permit for our party organ, the ‘North Star News’.
Our Appeal is made pursuant to Section 21(8) of the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act, Cap. 206 (“the NPPA”), which states: “Any person dissatisfied with any decision of the Minister or with any condition imposed by the Minister under this section may appeal to the President whose decision shall be final.”
We applied for the renewal on 13 June 2014. However, the MCI has refused to process the renewal unless all the members of our Central Executive Committee (“CEC”) disclose to MCI their monthly income/salary information.
Due to privacy and personal confidentiality, not all our CEC members have disclosed their monthly income/salary information. But MCI is insisting that they must do so, failing which our renewal application will not be processed.
We are aggrieved that MCI is withholding the Permit from us unless certain individuals, because they hold office as our CEC members, divulge to MCI financial information which is personal and private to such individuals, but which is otherwise not essential or relevant to a proper consideration by MCI of our renewal application.
As a political party, we rely on our party organ, the North Star News to communicate our views and opinions to the electorate. The continuing delay is detrimental to our interests, and the detriment increases with each passing day. The Prime Minister may call for the next General Elections at any time.
The NPPA does not spell out the time frame within which the outcome of our Appeal to the President would be made known.
We hope the President will give his decision on our Appeal soonest as possible.
Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss, Secretary-General
On behalf of the 15th Central Executive Committee
of the NATIONAL SOLIDARITY PARTY
–A Summary of our Appeal of the grounds of our Appeal–
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A full copy of our Appeal: http://bit.ly/1t26iPo
*Article first appeared on http://nsp.sg/2014/10/20/appeal-to-the-president-mci-refuses-to-process-...