Insolvency practitioner remuneration is a vexed topic globally and the role of courts in fixing and reviewing remuneration is controversial. This article compares the approaches adopted by the courts in the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore to the issue of fixing and reviewing corporate insolvency practitioners’ remuneration. The analysis considers the factors that the courts in the three jurisdictions consider in deciding remuneration claims including reasonableness, proportionality and the need for insolvency practitioners to justify their claims. Measures taken in each of the jurisdictions to facilitate predictability in time-based remuneration, whether through legislation, professional codes or judicial development, are examined. Various initiatives towards greater participation of external experts in deciding remuneration claims are also considered. The analysis finds that the three jurisdictions share some similarities despite jurisdictional differences but also differ in some important aspects. The article argues that courts have taken the initiative in each jurisdiction to fill a perceived regulatory gap where legislation provides little or ambiguous guidance, or where the judiciary believes that legislation and regulation have not kept up with community expectations. The results also highlight the cross-pollination of ideas in these jurisdictions.

This article compares three common law jurisdictions in Asia – Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. By studying the use of foreign citations in the reported opinions of these jurisdictions, we show that they have acquired a judicial character that is distinctively outward-looking and global. The variety and range of foreign citations suggest that the phenomenon cannot be fully explained as a matter of colonial legacy. The article further discusses the ways in which the use of foreign case citations serve as a means for legal and professional enrichment.

The Straits Settlements comprised a group of British territories located in the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It initially comprised Penang, Singapore, and Malacca, and was formed in 1826. Unlike Malacca which was a thriving city with a substantial Chinese community, Penang and Singapore were relatively uninhabited when the British arrived, but Chinese immigration to both territories swiftly took place and on a large scale. For much of the nineteenth century, British policy towards the Chinese community in the Straits was one of minimal governance. They were largely left to order their affairs privately and this suited the Chinese, who tended to be aloof from the machinery of government and were also unfamiliar with English law. While there were many positive aspects of such private ordering, some negative features included the manner in which secret societies evolved and the treatment of coolies. It was only when the colonial government introduced strong measures that these negative aspects were ameliorated.

This article considers the extent to which the legal framework for making land use decisions in Singapore allows for public participation. It examines the issue from two angles: the creation and preservation of the built environment, and the transient use of public space. The first angle is discussed primarily from a heritage law viewpoint, focusing on planning law, compulsory acquisition law, and the legal regime for creating national monuments. As for the second angle, the article looks at how the use of common spaces for assemblies and processions is regulated. The foregoing are examined in the context of Edward Soja’s assertion in Seeking Spatial Justice (2010) that the equitable distribution of resources, services, and access in cities is an important right.

This article began as mere curiosity over what appeared to be a paradox – Singapore and Hong Kong share countless economic and geopolitical similarities and compete vigorously for foreign direct investment (FDI), yet only the former has become a pharmaceutical hub while the latter struggles to attract any FDI in the sector. To find the reason for the “drastic” difference in pharmaceutical FDI, we compare the economic, legal, policy, and regulatory frameworks of the two jurisdictions focusing on the factors that have been identified in the economic literature as having the most relevance for FDI decision-making. The analysis discounts economic and legal factors before finding variances in policy and regulatory frameworks as the critical difference accounting for the disparity in the pharmaceutical FDI. Given that Hong Kong occasionally considers transforming itself into the “pharmaceutical centre for the Asia-Pacific”, this article calls for a change in policy approach and strategy before this aspiration is considered more realistically.

This paper uses Singapore as a case study in how the international anti-trafficking movement has influenced the regulation of sex work. In doing this, it explores the various historical, geographical, and socio-legal factors which have shaped Singapore’s system of regulation. It then presents the contemporary composition of the regulation of sex work in Singapore: a system of informal rules and protections hidden in the shadow of formal legal institutions. Finally, it analyses the impact of the international anti-trafficking movement, with specific emphasis on the American Trafficking in Persons Report, on Singapore’s regulation of sex work. It suggests that the recent increase of police raids on red light districts is aimed primarily at image control, and that these raids are undermining a functioning regulatory system. It concludes by suggesting that to improve upon its existing regulatory system, Singapore should focus on eliminating sex worker stigma and improving the rights of migrant workers.

Determining civil liability for dishonest assistance in breach of fiduciary duty requires courts to consider a combination of subjective and objective factors. Taking into account the person’s experience, intelligence and reasons for acting (subjective factors), did the person have sufficient knowledge of the transaction (subjective factor) so as to render participation in the transaction contrary to ordinary standards of honest behaviour (objective factor)? The piecemeal development of this test, as well as its complexity, led to inconsistency and confusion in application. In 2006, the Privy Council in Barlow Clowes International Ltd (in liq) v. Eurotrust International Ltd clarified that the person accused of dishonest assistance need not actually realise that involvement in the transaction would breach ordinary standards of honesty.

This article assesses how the dishonest assistance test has been applied since Barlow Clowes in two Commonwealth countries: Singapore and Malaysia. The article submits that recent Singaporean and Malaysian judgments have not satisfactorily articulated the various elements of the dishonest assistance test, and thus an attempt is made to provide a clear and concise formulation of the test. The article further posits that while Barlow Clowes indeed added badly needed clarity, it did so only with respect to the particular issue addressed by the Privy Council’s judgment. In other areas no less important – whether there is an active–passive dichotomy between dishonest assistance and knowing receipt, and the nature of wilful blindness in the non-criminal law context – fundamental questions about the contours of the test remain. The article proposes that there should not be an active–passive distinction, and that the test for wilful blindness – a type of dishonest assistance involving suspicion and turning a blind eye – should be revised to contain both subjective and objective elements.

“Pro bono” is a familiar phrase in North American jurisdictions that generally refers to a lawyer’s provision of free legal services to indigent persons. The phrase “pro bono” has also come to imply a particular approach to a lawyer’s relationship to indigent persons, one that stresses the obligatory as opposed to the charitable nature of the services provided. To what extent has this phrase, and its conceptualisation of a lawyer’s role, been used in Asian jurisdictions? This article examines how one Asian jurisdiction, Singapore, conceptualises a lawyer’s relationship to indigent persons by examining newspaper usage of phrases describing legal services for indigent persons. The article argues that changes in usage over time, from free legal services and legal aid to inclusion of pro bono, coupled with increased discussions of access to justice, represent a shift to a more obligatory concept of indigent legal services. An obligatory conceptualisation potentially exerts greater pressure on lawyers to provide indigent legal services, but can also exert pressure to revise the historical lack of broad-based government funded criminal legal aid in Singapore.

This is an essay on judicial discourse in Singapore and Malaysia pertaining to the nature and scope of the right of access to justice, including access to justice for the poor. We will examine the statements and pronouncements by the Singapore and Malaysia judiciary in case precedents and extra-judicial statements. Some of the issues explored include the legal status of this right of access to justice (namely, whether it is a right enshrined in the constitution or merely a right derived from the common law and whether it is qualified by economic and other interests) and the associated rights of legal representation, legal aid and contingency fees.

By religious legal pluralism we usually mean state-recognised legal pluralism, such as the kind of legal pluralism implemented in Singapore through the Administration of Muslim Law Act. But there is also religious legal pluralism outside State recognition and enforcement. Many religions have very long legal traditions which have survived, often without much support or official recognition by States (Jewish law, for example). In this paper we shall look at one such tradition, the canon law of the Latin Church of the Roman Catholic Church and its implementation by the Church in Singapore, including the establishment of very busy ecclesiastical tribunals in Singapore to administer disputes relating to the possible nullity of religious marriages, for example. The hope is that this example of Canon Law in Singapore will show that there can be very detailed and formal religious laws implemented by formal institutions such as tribunals outside the ambit of the State.

Prevailing discourse on multiculturalismi tend to focus on its merits in protecting the cultures and traditions of minority groups within the framework of the politics of accommodation. Less discussed are its implications on the rights and autonomy of members of the groups themselves who may be adversely affected by the arrangement. This paper attempts to fill the lacunae. It focuses on the problems arising from autonomy granted to the Muslim community of Singapore to determine its personal law, on some segments of the community. Unlike the rest of the citizens of Singapore, the Muslims are bound by their personal law in the domain of the family which they cannot relinquish as long as they remain Muslims. The system which began during the period of British colonial administration has remained ever since. Differences in the mechanisms as well as the orientation of social agencies in determining the Muslim law from those affecting the nonMuslims, invite unwarranted implications on the rights of Muslims, specifically. The problem is reinforced by the strong tendency of state actors to over-rely on dominant groups within the Muslim community in determining matters of Muslim law at the expense of competing ideas and orientation. The absence of choice of law for Muslims poses a predicament to those who do not wish to renounce their religion but maintain differences in perceptions of the Muslim law. This paper analyzes these problems in the arena of the Muslim law on marriage, divorce and inheritance. It also highlights how the arrangement has, in some instances, resulted in the exclusion of Muslims as a whole from the purview of specific national laws and influence policies affecting them against the preferences of the group's members. These issues have generally received scant attention, if at all, eclipsed perhaps by the greater focus on the merits of multiculturalism in protecting minority rights. Some plausible ways, in which the unwitting implications of legal pluralism on the members of the Muslim community can be addressed, taking into consideration both their right as members of the group as well as citizens of the state, are also discussed.

Proselytisation restrictions are typically subjected to two objections. First, these restrictions curtail religious liberty and impede religious truth-seeking. Second, these restrictions tend to favour politically dominant religions and discriminate against minority religions. The restrictions on offensive religious propagation in Singapore thus present an interesting departure in which sanctioned religions are not politically marginalised religions, whereas protected religions include numerical minority religions that are socially, economically, and politically disadvantaged. This article utilises the atypical case study of Singapore to highlight the limitations of the two typical objections toward proselytisation restrictions. In particular, the emphasis on religious truth-seeking underpinning these objections is premised upon a distinct set of religious worldviews not shared by the majority of religions in Singapore. This article posits that if religious truth-seeking is no longer the accepted normative goal, then there may be circumstances in which some limited and even-handed restrictions on offensive religious propagation are sufficiently justified on the grounds of social peace and harmony.

In 2001, the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore embarked on a bold initiative to teach legal skills in a more determined and focused way than ever before in its L.L.B. Programme. This paper documents how the experience of teaching skills in the United States was adapted and re-created for Singapore. It describes the challenges and the responses fashioned to deal with intensive and interactive small group teaching, research and mooting. The paper calls for student and learning centeredness and a keen appreciation of their cultural and social assumptions.

Are Asian law schools adequately preparing law students to handle problems raised by cross-border disputes? Preparation has generally been limited to courses in conflicts of law, international law and comparative law, but the successful presentation of a legal position in a foreign legal system arguably requires more than an understanding of legal rules. Studies in legal culture suggest that participants in different legal systems think about the law in radically different ways. Comparative examples from the criminal justice systems of the United States and Japan demonstrate that some knowledge of a comparative rhetoric of argument - which arguments are appropriate in different legal systems - is required. Legal Writing Programmes can play a role in teaching comparative argument by expanding the concept of “audience” to include foreign legal systems.