SINGAPORE — The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) has questioned why Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam took five weeks to address the death of teenager Benjamin Lim, in contrast with how he had weighed in quickly on another incident in his constituency involving the death of a four-year-old boy.

In a post on its Facebook page and website yesterday, the party also said the delay in the Government addressing the issue was “unacceptable”.

Opposition politician Kenneth Jeyaratnam also waded into the debate, questioning why Mr Shanmugam had said Benjamin would have likely received a warning and would not have been charged in court, when no decision had been made on the case before Benjamin died.

In its post, the SDP said that it did not “make sense” that Mr Shanmugam had not made any statements on the case earlier out of respect for Benjamin’s family.

“Mr Shanmugam was very quick off the mark over the incident where the 4-year-old boy fell through the window,” the party noted, referring to an incident last year when a boy fell to his death from his ninth-floor unit in Yishun through a window that had no window grilles.

Then, Mr Shanmugam had called the contractor — who did not install the grilles — “irresponsible”, about a week after the incident.

Mr Shanmugam, the party said, “chose to remain silent (on the Benjamin Lim case) despite widespread calls from the public for him to address the incident, and it was his protracted silence that irked the public and fuelled speculation over what happened that fateful day when the boy committed suicide.”

Benjamin, 14, was found dead on Jan 26, hours after he returned home from being questioned by the police for allegedly molesting a girl.

His death had sparked off weeks of questioning over the authorities’ handling of youth arrests, before Mr Shanmugam and Acting Education Minister (Schools) Ng Chee Meng on Tuesday delivered ministerial statements in Parliament on the case.

In any matter that is of “public interest”, people have every right to not only know the facts of a case but also “in a timely manner”, said the SDP.

Mr Jeyaretnam, who is secretary-general of the Reform Party, said on his personal blog that Mr Shanmugam had given the “theoretical outcome” of the investigations on Benjamin, which would have been “extremely upsetting” to Benjamin’s parents.

The minister’s statement had judged their son and “found him guilty without trial”, he said.

He also said that Law Society president Thio Shen Yi — who was criticised by Mr Shanmugam for implying that Benjamin killed himself because of police intimidation — was right to bring up the lack of protections in Singapore’s system for children.

“We urgently need legal reforms to safeguard the rights of suspects and further protections for juveniles, the mentally incapacitated and especially vulnerable,” Mr Jeyaratnam added. AMANDA LEE