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Public Law and Legal Theory

Siyuan CHEN

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Wrongful Convictions In Singapore: A General Survey Of Risk Factors, Siyuan Chen, Eunice Chua Jul 2012

Wrongful Convictions In Singapore: A General Survey Of Risk Factors, Siyuan Chen, Eunice Chua

Siyuan CHEN

This article seeks to raise awareness about the potential for wrongful convictions in Singapore by analysing the factors commonly identified as contributing towards wrongful convictions in other jurisdictions, including institutional failures and suspect evidence. It also considers whether the social conditions in Singapore are favourable to discovering and publicising wrongful convictions. The authors come to the conclusion that Singapore does well on a number of fronts and no sweeping reforms are necessary However there are areas of risk viz the excessive focus on crime control rather than due process, which require some tweaking of the system.


Natural Justice: A Case For Uniform Rigour, Siyuan Chen, Lionel Leo Jul 2012

Natural Justice: A Case For Uniform Rigour, Siyuan Chen, Lionel Leo

Siyuan CHEN

This note considers if there is a discernible framework in which courts resolve alleged claims of breaches of natural justice. On the one hand, once it has been ascertained that the rules of natural justice apply, the court will look at all the circumstances of the case to determine if there has been any u nfairness. On the other hand, it has been suggested th even assuming the rules of natural justice apply, there can be varying degrees of rigour in which they are enforced, a sliding scale of sorts.


Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen Jul 2012

Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen

Siyuan CHEN

The law on apparent bias has been mired in some controversy following the High Court decision of Re Shankar Alan s/o Anant Kulkarni, where Sundaresh Menon J.C. seemingly departed from the tentative views of Andrew Phang J.C. (as he then was) in Tang Kin Hwa v. Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners Board on the issue of whether there were any material differences between the “reasonable suspicion of bias” test and the “real likelihood of bias” test, the two formulations of the test for apparent bias that have been variously adopted by different jurisdictions in the common law world. In Tang Kin …