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Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

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Full-Text Articles in Public Law and Legal Theory

Compensation For Victims Of Crimes: Should Victims’ Financial Means And Insurance Coverage Matter? — Criminal Procedure Code 2010, S 359(1); Public Prosecutor V Ong Eng Siew [2025] Sghc 55, Benjamin Joshua Ong Mar 2026

Compensation For Victims Of Crimes: Should Victims’ Financial Means And Insurance Coverage Matter? — Criminal Procedure Code 2010, S 359(1); Public Prosecutor V Ong Eng Siew [2025] Sghc 55, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Under s 359(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010, the court can order an offender to compensate the victim with a sum which the victim would have been able to recover in a civil claim in tort against the offender. The courts have used this useful power extensively, though problems remain. One such problem is seen in Ong Eng Siew, where the court declined to make a compensation order. Given the purpose of the compensation system, the court was not correct to hold – in effect – that the purpose of s 359(1) is to benefit only impecunious victims, and …


Success And Flourishing In Singapore: The Impact Of Laws And Policies On The Ethos And Character Of A People, Seow Hon Tan Mar 2026

Success And Flourishing In Singapore: The Impact Of Laws And Policies On The Ethos And Character Of A People, Seow Hon Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

According to virtue jurisprudence, good laws can be conducive to virtuous living; poor laws can contribute to character vices and entrench prejudices. This article focuses on what lies beyond the strict categorization of virtue and vice simpliciter—the ethos and mindset of a people. Using a case study of Singapore, this article examines how law, conceived of in the broadest sense as including policies chosen in a legal regime that leaves the concretization of policies to government bodies, can diminish the capacity and desire of individuals to live examined lives in pursuit of eudaimonia or flourishing. Insofar as living examined lives …


Imprisonment When An Offender Cannot Pay A Fine, Benjamin Joshua Ong Dec 2025

Imprisonment When An Offender Cannot Pay A Fine, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

According to a common-law rule in place since the 1993 case of Low Meng Chay v Public Prosecutor [1993] 1 SLR(R) 46, if the court is minded to impose a fine but the offender will clearly be unable to pay a fine, the offender should be sentenced to imprisonment instead (as opposed to a fine coupled with a default imprisonment term). While one can understand why the courts may apply this practice, the practice obscures the crucial distinction between: (a) being sentenced to a fine, then imprisoned in default of payment (which, it is submitted, is the correct course of …


Individual Liberty, Safety And Police Liabilities Under The Mental Health (Care And Treatment) Act, Gary Kok Yew Chan Mar 2025

Individual Liberty, Safety And Police Liabilities Under The Mental Health (Care And Treatment) Act, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

How should a society strike a balance between the objective of ensuring safety from dangers that may be posed by individuals believed to have a mental disorder and the deprivation of their liberty? How should police officers discharge their duties in apprehending such individuals with a view to conveying them to a medical practitioner at a psychiatric institution? These legal issues took centrestage in the Singapore High Court decision of Mah Kiat Seng v Attorney-General in which the apprehended individual brought claims in false imprisonment against a police officer. The decision examined the underlying purposes of the Singapore Mental Health …


Law, Politics, And The Academy In Asia: Navigating Constraints As Public Law Scholars, De Maartje Visser, Qian Liu, Victor V. Ramraj Mar 2025

Law, Politics, And The Academy In Asia: Navigating Constraints As Public Law Scholars, De Maartje Visser, Qian Liu, Victor V. Ramraj

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

How do academics interested in the study of legal topics that implicate the state relate to and deal with pressures that shape the space available to conduct research? This article examines the nature and impact of such pressures on Asia-focused public law scholars who must contend with a more diverse socio-political environment than the liberal democratic setting in which questions of academic freedom are typically explored. We find that the Asia-centric academy is affected by a wide range of constraints that notably extends beyond intra-institutional demands to those put in place by the state. This article also highlights how the …


How Can Malaysian Courts Consistently Perform Meaningful Constitutional Rights Review? Lessons From Past Cases And The Way Forward, Benjamin Joshua Ong Aug 2024

How Can Malaysian Courts Consistently Perform Meaningful Constitutional Rights Review? Lessons From Past Cases And The Way Forward, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the past, Malaysian courts performing constitutional rights review played a merely clerical role, applying a test that was trivially easy for legislation to pass. Then a more rigorous proportionality test took root. However, the Federal Court in the 2020 case of Letitia Bosman whittled the test down again, and the courts once more played a minimal role in checking state action. The reasons for this cannot be explained merely by diversity in judicial philosophy or political contextual factors. Rather, the near-demise of proportionality (and, with it, robust constitutional review) was made possible by a lack of a clear sense …


A Non-Contractual Approach To Smart Contracts, Florian Gamper Sep 2023

A Non-Contractual Approach To Smart Contracts, Florian Gamper

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article adds to the debate on what, legally speaking, smart contracts are and what they should be. Currently, much of this debate focuses on the relationship between smart contracts and legal contracts, overlooking that other legal categories may also be appropriate. This article suggests that the concept of abandonment can be fruitfully applied to smart contracts. Using the concept of abandonment has the advantage of allowing smart contracts, as close as legally possible, to be utilized as machines (or using the terminology suggested by Vitalik Buterin, founder of Etherium, as a ‘persistent script’). It would also make other issues, …


Constitutional Equality And Executive Action: A Comparative Perspective To The Comparator Problem, Kenny Chng Mar 2023

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 …


Legal Dispositionism And Artificially-Intelligent Attributions, Jerrold Soh Feb 2023

Legal Dispositionism And Artificially-Intelligent Attributions, Jerrold Soh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is conventionally argued that because an artificially-intelligent (AI) system acts autonomously, its makers cannot easily be held liable should the system's actions harm. Since the system cannot be liable on its own account either, existing laws expose victims to accountability gaps and need to be reformed. Recent legal instruments have nonetheless established obligations against AI developers and providers. Drawing on attribution theory, this paper examines how these seemingly opposing positions are shaped by the ways in which AI systems are conceptualised. Specifically, folk dispositionism underpins conventional legal discourse on AI liability, personality, publications, and inventions and leads us towards …


Constitutional Traditions As Boundaries In Standardizing Administrative Rulemaking Through Trade Agreements, Han-Wei Liu, Ching-Fu Lin Oct 2022

Constitutional Traditions As Boundaries In Standardizing Administrative Rulemaking Through Trade Agreements, Han-Wei Liu, Ching-Fu Lin

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Pioneered by the US, recent mega-regional trade agreements such as the CPTPP have incorporated ‘regulatory coherence’ provisions—mirroring the US Administrative Procedural Act's core designs—to balance between domestic regulatory autonomy and international cooperation. Building upon existing literature that traces the trajectories of the diffusion of regulatory coherence across jurisdictions, this article analyses how Australia's constitutional tradition could effectively condition the development of regulatory coherence in a Westminster-based model of governance. It is argued that the global entrenchment of regulatory coherence is contingent upon the inherent boundary defined by the political dynamics and constitutional structures within a jurisdiction.


The Relevance Of Purpose In Constitutional Equal Protection Challenges To Executive Action, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng Jul 2022

The Relevance Of Purpose In Constitutional Equal Protection Challenges To Executive Action, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Written constitutions often include generalized guarantees of equal protection which imply a proscription on unconstitutional differential treatment. This paper will examine what the analytical focus ought to be when evaluating challenges to executive action based on such rights, a particularly relevant issue given recent developments in Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s equal protection jurisprudence. These developments suggest that there are three possible analytical focal points, each of which takes a different perspective on the relevance of the executive’s purpose in utilizing differential treatment: (1) the connection between the chosen differentiation and the specific purpose of the challenged executive action; (2) the …


Online Falsehoods, Constitutional Free Speech And Its Limits: The Online Citizen V The Attorney-General, Gary K. Y. Chan Mar 2022

Online Falsehoods, Constitutional Free Speech And Its Limits: The Online Citizen V The Attorney-General, Gary K. Y. Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore Court of Appeal has for the first time in The Online Citizen v The Attorney-General (8 October 2021) adjudicated on the constitutionality of correction directions issued by Ministers against allegedly false statements of fact under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019. An overarching framework was utilised to assess whether the Ministerial directions restrict free speech under Article 14(1)(a) of the Constitution; if so, whether the restrictions are justifiable under the Constitution and whether there is a rational nexus between the statutory aims and enumerated exceptions. This case comment also examines the constitutional stance towards subject …


Analysing The Constitutionality Of Executive Action Under Articles 14 And 15 In Singapore – Theoretical And Doctrinal Perspectives, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng Mar 2022

Analysing The Constitutionality Of Executive Action Under Articles 14 And 15 In Singapore – Theoretical And Doctrinal Perspectives, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Articles 14 and 15 of the Singapore Constitution enshrine the rights to free speech, religious freedom, and other related rights in Singapore. These provisions also set out the circumstances under which these rights may be restricted. Notably, however, these provisions are directed at legislativerestrictions. The question is how they are applicable to executive action. This paper suggests that there are two possible means by which one can assess the constitutionality of executive action under Articles 14 and 15 in Singapore – the jurisdictional and substantive approaches – and demonstrates that evidence of both approaches can be found in Singapore law. …


Reconsidering The Legal Regulation Of The Usage Of Administrative Policies, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng Jan 2022

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 …


Singapore: National Report For The Global Access To Justice Project, Tan K. B. Eugene Sep 2021

Singapore: National Report For The Global Access To Justice Project, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Global Access to Justice Project is gathering the very latest information on the impact of the world’s major justice systems, analyzing legal, economic, social, cultural and psychological barriers that prevent or inhibit many, and not only the poor, from entering and using the legal system. The country report for Singapore follows the common framework provided by the Global Access to Justice Project Questionnaire.


Judicial Review Of Non-Statutory Executive Action [Amanda Sapienza, Federation Press, 2020], Wei Yao, Kenny Chng Jun 2021

Judicial Review Of Non-Statutory Executive Action [Amanda Sapienza, Federation Press, 2020], Wei Yao, Kenny Chng

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Dr. Amanda Sapienza’s “Judicial Review of Non-Statutory Executive Action” (The Federation Press, 2020) is an impressive work of scholarship. It provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of various aspects of the law relating to judicial review of non-statutory executive action with a specific focus on Australia, engaging with issues ranging from jurisdiction, justiciability, the conceptual basis for judicial review of non-statutory executive action, and the grounds of review and remedies available for judicial review of such action. While the book is directed primarily at Australian law, the quality and detail of the analysis proffered within makes it a worthy read …


The Role Of The Law Of Unjust Enrichment In Singapore, Hang Wu Tang Feb 2021

The Role Of The Law Of Unjust Enrichment In Singapore, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Singapore's unjust enrichment law may be described as a form of adoption with adaptation from English law, which is indicative of two phenomena: first, the idea of law as a travelling phenomenon and, second, the development of law as a circulation of ideas. In Singapore, unjust enrichment is now accepted as a distinct branch of the law of obligations alongside tort and contract, providing relief to a plaintiff who has transferred an enrichment to the defendant in circumstances where the plaintiffs intent was vitiated. This vitiation of intent is expressed as an 'unjust factor'. While certain 'unjust factors' are regarded …


Why An Independent, Holistic Review Of The Parti Liyani Case Is Necessary, Tan K. B. Eugene Sep 2020

Why An Independent, Holistic Review Of The Parti Liyani Case Is Necessary, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan discussed the case of Parti Liyani versus Public Prosecutor, and explained why an independent, holistic review of the case is necessary.


Massive Covid‐19 Infections In Foreign Workers Dormitories: The Dog That Did Not Bark In Singapore’S Fight Against The Covid‐19 Pandemic, Eugene K. B. Tan Sep 2020

Massive Covid‐19 Infections In Foreign Workers Dormitories: The Dog That Did Not Bark In Singapore’S Fight Against The Covid‐19 Pandemic, Eugene K. B. Tan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the ongoing battle to combat the massive COVID-19 infections in the foreign workers’ dormitories, the focus and dominant narrative, unsurprisingly, has been on overcoming the clear and present public health issues there. The imperative is to safeguard the wellbeing and interests of the foreign workers who reside there (and including those who have been moved out), which is also fundamentally about protecting the rest of the community.


Trading Through A Pandemic: The Singaporean Experience, Henry Gao, Dhiraj G. Chainani, Siu Farn Chew Sep 2020

Trading Through A Pandemic: The Singaporean Experience, Henry Gao, Dhiraj G. Chainani, Siu Farn Chew

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Being a small country with one of the highest trade-to-GDP ratios in the world, Singapore faced seemingly insurmountable challenges at the onset of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As countries around the world scrambled to fight the pandemic, they imposed restrictions on exports and imports, suspended international transportation of both goods and people, and invoked emergency power and exceptions to justify their actions. All these presented unprecedented challenges to Singapore, a country which relies on international trade not only for its prosperity but also for survival. This article discusses how Singapore tries to meet these challenges through various initiatives …


Philanthropic Structuring: The Asian Context, Hang Wu Tang, Man Yip, Vincent Ooi Aug 2020

Philanthropic Structuring: The Asian Context, Hang Wu Tang, Man Yip, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Asian philanthropy has tremendous potential for growth. Even as the population of ultra-rich individuals in Asia continues to expand, studies indicate that Asian philanthropists have the capacity to give a lot more. The key to tapping into the massive potential for Asian giving and catalysing sustainable and impactful philanthropy in Asia, is to understand the Asian way of giving and embrace strategic institutional and industry innovation.Our paper proposes three strategic directions to expand access to philanthropy: encouraging giving beyond one’s home and religious causes; encouraging everyone to give regardless of the size of the gift; and encouraging formal giving.Strong support …


Legal Constraint In Emergencies: Reflections On Carl Schmitt, The Covid-19 Pandemic And Singapore | Symposium On Covid-19 & Public Law, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng Jul 2020

Legal Constraint In Emergencies: Reflections On Carl Schmitt, The Covid-19 Pandemic And Singapore | Symposium On Covid-19 & Public Law, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The controversial legal theorist Carl Schmitt’s challenge to the possibility of meaningful legal constraint on executive power in emergencies could not be more relevant in a world struggling to deal with Covid-19. Scrambling against time, governments around the world have declared states of emergency and exercised a swathe of broad executive powers in an effort to manage this highly infectious disease. In times like these, if Schmitt is indeed right that emergencies cannot be governed by law, we are on the cusp of (or perhaps have already entered) a post-law world – where the business of government is characterised by …


Compensation For Abused Foreign Domestic Workers: A Problem Of Enforcement, Benjamin Joshua Ong Jul 2020

Compensation For Abused Foreign Domestic Workers: A Problem Of Enforcement, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In Tay Wee Kiat v Public Prosecutor [2018] 5 SLR 438; [2019] 5 SLR 1033, two offenders who had abused a foreign domestic worker had been ordered to pay her compensation, on pain of a default term of imprisonment. When they failed to pay, the Prosecution applied for the compensation order to be enforced by way of attachment of the offenders’ property or garnishment of debts due to the offenders (“garnishment/attachment orders”). The High Court refused to make garnishment/attachment orders on the grounds that (a) the Prosecution had applied for such orders belatedly; and (b) such orders would lead to …


Consider Allowing No-Fault Divorce To Remove Blame Game When Couples Split, Wing Cheong Chan Jul 2020

Consider Allowing No-Fault Divorce To Remove Blame Game When Couples Split, Wing Cheong Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Such divorces remove acrimony and help families heal after a marriage breakdown


Forum: Some Misconceptions About The Revocation Of Work Passes, Benjamin Joshua Ong Jun 2020

Forum: Some Misconceptions About The Revocation Of Work Passes, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Several work pass holders, including both blue- and white-collar workers, have recently had their work passes revoked after they breached safe distancing rules.


Of Constitutional Commissions And Expert-Led Interpretation During Processes Of Constitutional Change, De Maartje Visser Jan 2020

Of Constitutional Commissions And Expert-Led Interpretation During Processes Of Constitutional Change, De Maartje Visser

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In an 1816 letter, Thomas Jefferson expressed himself in favour of including a provision in the constitution that would prescribe its regular upkeep. “[E]ach generation”, the Founding Father wrote, ought to be able to revise the constitu- tion “every nineteen or twenty years”, so it could “be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time.” As we know, his advice was not heeded: the U.S. Constitution is notoriously difficult to change, with the longest interval between two amendments running to slightly more than six decades. Closer to home, the Singapore Constitution similarly does not …


Standing Up For Your Rights: A Review Of The Law Of Standing In Judicial Review In Singapore, Benjamin Joshua Ong Dec 2019

Standing Up For Your Rights: A Review Of The Law Of Standing In Judicial Review In Singapore, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

There are two types of rules on standing to apply for judicial review of legislation or executive action on constitutional grounds. ‘Interest-based’ rules grant standing to a person who can demonstrate a ‘sufficient interest’ in the subject matter of the application. ‘Rights-based’ rules require the applicant to identify a specific constitutional right vested in him that has allegedly been violated. Singapore’s standing rules are now rights-based. Rights-based standing rules are distinctively advantageous as they provide a forum for the courts to develop the content of constitutional rights as part of the standing inquiry; such development is not always possible at …


Politics And Policy: Chinese Money And Its Impact On The Regulation Of Residential Property In The West, Edward Seng Wei Ti Dec 2019

Politics And Policy: Chinese Money And Its Impact On The Regulation Of Residential Property In The West, Edward Seng Wei Ti

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The narrative of Chinese real estate investors in some western jurisdictions reads like this: China has in recent decades, enjoyed burgeoning wealth creation across all strata in society. Chinese buyers are attracted to a ‘westernised’ education for their children, an agreeable and law-abiding civic society all whilst living in a clean and pleasant environment. Western real estate markets are seen as safe havens and bringing about portfolio diversification. This flood of Chinese wealth has impacted residential housing markets resulting in locals being outpriced. To combat unaffordability and housing shortages, governments have had no choice but to impose regulatory measures preventing …


Symposium On Pofma: Parliamentary Debates About Pofma – Hansard Beyond Statutory Interpretation?, Benjamin Joshua Ong Nov 2019

Symposium On Pofma: Parliamentary Debates About Pofma – Hansard Beyond Statutory Interpretation?, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The issue of a legislative response to falsehoods first drew public attention when the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods held its public hearings. This public attention was renewed when the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (“POFMA”), in Bill form, was unveiled. Questions arose among both the public and MPs about whether POFMA would grant the Government power to stifle academic research, journalism, or the expression of opinion, as well as whether it would be difficult for an individual to seek recourse against an allegedly wrongly made Direction.This post focuses not with the substance of these issues (important …


A Recap Of The 2018/19 International Moots Season, Siyuan Chen, Eunice Chua Nov 2019

A Recap Of The 2018/19 International Moots Season, Siyuan Chen, Eunice Chua

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.