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Full-Text Articles in Law
The New System Of Civil Appeals: What "Constitutional Or Administrative Law" Is; Whether To Appeal To The Appellate Division Or The Court Of Appeal; And Proposals For Further Reform, Benjamin Joshua Ong
The New System Of Civil Appeals: What "Constitutional Or Administrative Law" Is; Whether To Appeal To The Appellate Division Or The Court Of Appeal; And Proposals For Further Reform, Benjamin Joshua Ong
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
An application was made under s 95 of the Legal Profession Act to set aside a penalty imposed by the Council of the Law Society. The Court of Appeal held that an appeal lay to the Appellate Division of the High Court, and not the Court of Appeal, because this was not a “case relating to constitutional or administrative law”. The reasoning is problematic: it relied on an overly narrow conception of “public powers”, conflated judicial review with administrative law more broadly, erroneously considered the merits of the application as relevant to the “which court” question, and overlooked the similarities …
Constitutional Equality And Executive Action: A Comparative Perspective To The Comparator Problem, Kenny Chng
Constitutional Equality And Executive Action: A Comparative Perspective To The Comparator Problem, Kenny Chng
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
A general right to equality is a common feature of written constitutions around the world. Interesting questions arise when one seeks to apply such rights to discrete executive acts. The subject of such acts has necessarily been singled out from a multitude of possibilities for the purposes of the act. To determine whether a differentiation has occurred such that like cases have not been treated alike, to what or whom should this subject be compared? The question of how one selects the proper comparator becomes especially significant when one notes that whether the equal protection guarantee is triggered at all …
Re-Examining Judicial Review Of Delegated Legislation, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng
Re-Examining Judicial Review Of Delegated Legislation, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
The usage of delegated legislation as a means of governance deserves significant attention, in view of the enormous impact that it is capable of having on the lives of citizens. While reforms to the process of parliamentary scrutiny are an important means of minimising the inappropriate usage of delegated legislation, this paper explores the possibility of drawing more fruitfully upon judicial review as an additional control mechanism. It undertakes a theoretical analysis of what makes delegated legislation distinct from primary legislation and other types of executive action for the purposes of judicial review, with a view towards identifying the proper …
Revisiting Remedies And The Legality-Merits Distinction In Singapore Administrative Law: Cbb V Law Society Of Singapore [2021] Sgca 6, Kenny Chng, Wen Qi Andrea Soon
Revisiting Remedies And The Legality-Merits Distinction In Singapore Administrative Law: Cbb V Law Society Of Singapore [2021] Sgca 6, Kenny Chng, Wen Qi Andrea Soon
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
It is a general principle of administrative law that the courts will not compel a decision-maker to perform a public duty in a particular manner by way of a mandatory order. Notably, in CBB v Law Society of Singapore [2021] SGCA 6, the Singapore Court of Appeal accepted that an exception could be made to this general principle where there was only one reasonable way to perform the public duty in question. Beyond the decision’s obvious ramifications for the law relating to public law remedies in Singapore, this note argues that the Court of Appeal’s reasoning bears significant implications for …
Reconsidering The Legal Regulation Of The Usage Of Administrative Policies, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng
Reconsidering The Legal Regulation Of The Usage Of Administrative Policies, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
Policies are of great practical importance in administrative governance. Yet, doctrinal and normative ambiguities remain in the law regulating the usage of administrative policies. Specifically, there exists a well-known tension between the rule against fettering and the legitimate expectations doctrine. Approaching this issue from a normative angle and drawing upon T.R.S. Allan’s reflections on the rule of law, the paper will argue that a unified legal approach governing the usage of administrative policies, premised on the normative objective of furthering the rule of law as the rule of reason, will go a significant way towards resolving this tension and addressing …
The Singapore Green Plan 2030: Analysing Its Implications On Law And The Legal Industry In Singapore, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng, Ken Wei Ong
The Singapore Green Plan 2030: Analysing Its Implications On Law And The Legal Industry In Singapore, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng, Ken Wei Ong
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
While sustainability has always been an important policy imperative in Singapore, the advent of the Singapore Green Plan 2030 marks a significant development in this regard. Announced in February 2021, the Green Plan represents a concerted national-level strategic shift towards advancing the sustainability agenda in Singapore. With sustainable development now being a ‘major policy priority’, it is inevitable that the Green Plan will have important legal implications, each of which will be identified and analysed in this paper. More broadly, however, the paper also suggests that the Green Plan will open up valuable opportunities for environmental law to receive greater …
The Unmeritorious ‘Legality’/‘Merits’ Distinction In Singapore Administrative Law, Benjamin Joshua Ong
The Unmeritorious ‘Legality’/‘Merits’ Distinction In Singapore Administrative Law, Benjamin Joshua Ong
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
The Singapore courts often state that judicial review of executive decision-making ought only to involve an inquiry into the ‘legality’ of a decision or the ‘decision-making process’, and not the ‘decision itself’ or its ‘merits’ – let us call this the ‘Distinction’. This paper argues that the Distinction should be expunged from Singapore law. The Distinction has its roots in English case law which aimed to prevent the courts from arbitrarily substituting their decision for the executive’s by reason of mere disagreement. But Singapore case law has gone further and treated the Distinction as a general principle applicable to all …
Form And Substance In Singapore Constitutional And Administrative Law, Kenny Chng
Form And Substance In Singapore Constitutional And Administrative Law, Kenny Chng
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
This paper proposes to study constitutional and administrative law in Singapore through the lenses of Atiyah’s and Summers’ concepts of form and substance in order to discern fruitful avenues for the development of Singapore constitutional and administrative law. While the concepts of form and substance in the context of constitutional law are often associated with constitutional interpretation, they can also be fruitfully applied to other areas of constitutional and administrative law to shed light on the potential trajectories of Singapore law. The intent of this paper is to apply Atiyah’s and Summers’ concepts of form and substance to Singapore constitutional …
The Ouster Of Parliamentary Sovereignty?, Benjamin Joshua Ong
The Ouster Of Parliamentary Sovereignty?, Benjamin Joshua Ong
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (“RIPA”) establishes the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (“IPT”), which hears complaints relating to surveillance activities by public authorities. The Supreme Court case of R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal (“Privacy International”) concerned the Secretary of State’s power under section 5 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 to issue a warrant authorising MI5, MI6, or GCHQ to enter or interfere with property “specified” in the warrant. The IPT had to decide whether it was lawful for the Secretary of State to issue a warrant in respect of a class of property (sometimes known as …
This Land Was Made For You And Me: Public Participation In Land Use Decisions In Singapore, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee
This Land Was Made For You And Me: Public Participation In Land Use Decisions In Singapore, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
No abstract provided.
The Belitung Shipwreck And Bukit Brown Cemetery: Legal Aspects, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee
The Belitung Shipwreck And Bukit Brown Cemetery: Legal Aspects, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
No abstract provided.
Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen
Reasonable Suspicion Or Real Likelihood: A Question Of Semantics? Re Shankar Alan S/O Anant Kulkarni, Lionel Leo, Siyuan Chen
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
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 …
Natural Justice: A Case For Uniform Rigour, Siyuan Chen, Lionel Leo
Natural Justice: A Case For Uniform Rigour, Siyuan Chen, Lionel Leo
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
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.