The High Court Judge Redson Kapindu has rejected proposed bail conditions by Lin Yunhua, a convicted wildlife trafficker and money launderer, warning that bail must not become a privilege available to accused persons simply because they have the financial means to fund an alternative form of detention.
Among the conditions proposed was that, upon release, the Lin would reside at his daughter’s house in Area 49, and that she was willing to offer her interest in the said property as collateral/security in connection with the Applicant’s bail in the event that he failed to comply with his conditions.
The convict’s lawyer Vaida Banda added that the accused will adhere to a curfew set by the Court and must be within his residence at the curfew set.
“The Accused Person should only be allowed to be visited at his residence by his immediate family at specific times of the week and day. The Accused Person’s residence should be visited by the Police to ensure that conditions are adhered to.
“Provided that the police shall alternate to avoid familiarity with the accused person and shall carry an audio and video recorder at all times during the visits, which shall not be switched off at any time of the visit and shall be submitted to the Court for review,” reads part of the proposals
Banda further informed the court that Lin was prepared to bear all the expenses reasonably incurred in ensuring compliance with the proposed arrangements arising from police involvement, including transportation, allowances where applicable, and so on.
The State accepted all proposed bail conditions.
However, Kapindu expressed concern that the proposed arrangements were based on Lin having “substantial financial resources to finance the whole arrangement”, including transportation and allowances for police officers involved in his supervision.
The judge warned that such an arrangement could create “an unfortunate and unacceptable regime of differential treatment between the affluent remand prisoner and the indigent or less affluent one.”
The court said a poorer accused person facing the same flight risk would not be able to finance police movements, electronic monitoring and private residential confinement.
“What this scenario would essentially entail is that the risky but wealthier accused person would, in effect, buy for himself or herself, a different mode and place of detention that is different from the ordinary prisoner,” the court said.
The judge went further, warning that the bail system must not allow wealthy accused persons to escape conventional remand custody through private financial means.
“The administration of the bail regime in this country must not develop into a system in which persons who present otherwise unacceptable risks, including serious flight risks, can, through private financial means, effectively pay their way out of conventional remand prison custody,” the court ruled.
The court also strongly objected to Lin’s proposal to pay allowances for police officers assigned to supervise him.
The arrangement, the court said, was “institutionally inappropriate”, questioning whether police officers funded by the accused could properly maintain the required relationship between the State and the person under supervision.
The judge asked: “who exactly, in that relationship, is serving whom?”
The court likened the proposal to “requiring a prisoner to pay the daily subsistence allowances of the prison warders who are assigned to guard him or her, in order to prevent his or her own escape.”
The judge concluded that “Freedom that is guaranteed by the State should not, as a general rule, be, in essence, privately bought at a price.”
The court ultimately maintained that no reasonable set of bail conditions could sufficiently address Lin’s flight risk and rejected the proposed arrangement.
