Chc members queue for tickets to courtroom but don't turn up so public can't enter

[Sammyboy RSS Feed]

An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

CHC MEMBERS QUEUE FOR TICKETS TO COURTROOM BUT DON'T TURN UP SO PUBLIC CAN'T ENTER

.node-article .field-name-link-line-above-tags{float: right;}.node-article .field-name-ad-box-in-article {float: left;margin: 15px 15px 10px 0;}.node-article .field-tags{clear: both;} Post date:
22 Aug 2014 - 6:50pm








As the City Harvest Church trial continued its court hearings over the past two weeks with the co-accused church members including Church leader Kong Hee taking the stand, it has been very difficult for interested members of the public to attend the court hearings beacuse they are "full".

The courts have a system in place where interested parties must collect a ticket to enter the courtroom if they wish to sit inside during the hearing. However, despite all the tickets being taken, these past few weeks have seen only half full court rooms and members of the public without tickets have been rejected.

The tickets, which are transferrable, are handed out at the start of the day. For high profile cases such as the CHC one, those who wish to sit inside the courtroom must have a ticket to enter.

Here is what the state courts website says about the tickets:
Public access to Courtroom is based on first-come-first-seated basis. The Courtroom will open 30 minutes before the hearing starts. A queue pole will be set up outside the Courtroom for crowd management, when necessary.
For cases of high public interest which are likely to attract a larger than usual turnout, there will be a limit to the number of seats allocated in the Courtroom (e.g. to family members of person charged in court, prosecutors, defence counsel, court interpreters, etc.) where the case is heard. Under such circumstances, queue poles will be set up outside the Court building to facilitate orderliness due to the large crowd. The State Courts will issue a special pass (transferrable) to members of the public who wish to observe the proceedings of the case.

The special passes will be issued outside the Court building on each day of the trial, before the hearing starts. When all the special passes (for the morning or afternoon) are issued, members of the public will be notified that the Courtroom is full. There will be no entry into the Court building until further notice. This is to prevent exceeding the occupancy load of the building and to ensure that fire safety regulations are complied with.
It has come to light that there are a large number of city harvest church members who actually go down to the courts in the morning as early as 5am in order to take the tickets:

A CHC member tipped TRS off explaining that some church members have actually been organising for buses to ferry members to the courtroom and after taking the tickets, they give them to their church leaders.







As a result, the public are prevented from being able to enter the courtroom to hear the real truth first hand.

This explained why despite all the tickets being taken every day, the courtrooms have been remaining about half empty.

Since today, the state courts have changed the rules and started allowing members of the public into the courtroom even if they don't have tickets as long as there are still empty seats.


Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com.