Law Commons^™

Government Funding Of Town Councils: The Role Of Private Law, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Section 42 of theTown Councils Act (Cap 329A, 2000 Rev Ed) provides for the Government toprovide grants to Town Councils “subject to such conditions as theMinister may determine”. The imposition of such conditions can beuseful in theory. However, there is no clear mechanism by which suchconditions may be enforced. This article proposes that this lacuna befilled as follows: such conditions are to take the form of private-lawrelationships between the Government and Town Councils. After outliningthe benefits of this proposal, the article critiques the Court of Appeal’sdecision in a 2016 case which held that such private-lawrelationships cannot exist as a matter …