SINGAPORE: In the first prosecution of a National Service (NS) defaulter who is no longer a citizen, a 24-year-old Thai national and former Singapore citizen was fined S$6,000 (142,000 baht) on Tuesday.
Ekawit Tangtrakarn pleaded guilty last month to defaulting on his NS obligations, TODAY reported on Wednesday.
An engineer, he was born in Bangkok in 1993 and has lived there permanently since. However, although a Thai national he also gained Singapore citizenship when he was one-year-old, when his mother, a Singaporean, registered him there.
Ekawit admitted to remaining outside Singapore without a valid exit permit from April 17, 2010, until Oct 16, 2015. Another charge of being outside Singapore without a valid exit permit from October 2006 to April 2010 was considered during sentencing.
Ekawit travelled to Singapore on several occasions to visit his grandmother. On all but one occasion he used his Thai passport. He last visited Singapore in October 2003 for a week, on his 10th birthday.
When he turned 22 in 2015, he lost his Singapore citizenship after failing to take the Oath of Renunciation, Allegiance and Loyalty.
Minors who are citizens by descent or registration must take the oath within 12 months of turning 21 years old, in order to remain a citizen.
Singapore does not permit dual citizenship. A foreign national minor who wishes to remain Singaporean must renounce his foreign citizenship within 12 months of reaching 21 years old.
In his sentencing remarks, district Judge John Ng said imprisonment was not an appropriate sentence for Ekawit as he is “first and foremost a Thai national or citizen before anything else”.
Furthermore, Ekawit had already completed mandatory military service in the Royal Thai Army.
“He did not fail to ‘return’ to Singapore since Singapore was neither his homeland nor his country of domicile. He had always remained rooted to his country of origin and domicile -- Thailand,” the judge noted.
“It is incorrect to see Ekawit as a Singaporean boy who had stayed away from Singapore to escape performing NS, or in order to pursue his studies and only returning to serve NS at a time of his choosing. Ekawit’s situation is also different from someone who wants to leave Singapore to become a citizen of a foreign country without fulfilling his NS duties,” he added.
Speaking on behalf of his mother, Genevieve Lim, Ekawit’s lawyer S Radakrishnan told reporters that she thanked district Judge Ng for the fairness he had shown, and that they were “very relieved that the ordeal is over”.
The family will be heading back to Bangkok, where they reside, as soon as Ekawit’s passport is returned to him, Radakrishnan added.