Against the triumvirate of evaluative factors (viz. the 'rule of law', human rights and democracy) assessing good government, domestic and foreign sources1 have given Singapore both good and bad reports.

This article aims to assess the role played by the rule of law in discourse by critics of the Singapore Government's policies and in the Government's responses to such criticisms. It argues that in the past the two narratives clashed over conceptions of the rule of law, but there is now evidence of convergence of thinking as regards the need to protect human rights, though not necessarily as to how the balance between rights and other public interests should be truck. The article also examines why the rule of law must be regarded as a constitutional doctrine in Singapore, the legal implications of this fact, and how useful the doctrine is in fostering greater solicitude for human rights.

Einstein observed, "Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted". There is much wisdom in this penetrating observation. Since this session is devoted to the abstruse science of measurement, may I amplify this Einsteinian gem by adding that not everything after counting counts because those who ought to count cannot always be counted upon to properly count. We evaluate indices in terms of validity. That is to say, are they measuring what they purport to be doing? Reliability, do they produce consistent measures for repeated efforts? And bias, are the values objectively true?

Over the years, there have been many debates on what the Rule of Law actually means, and what it should include. Whether the Rule of Law should be "thick" or "thin". The differences between "Rule of Law" and "Rule by Law".

Intestacy law is an important area of property and succession law because some people do not make valid wills. The values and expectations of a society will generally influence the raming of intestacy rules. The intestacy schemes presently operating in Australia, England and Singapore are no exception. This article describes how the law in each of these jurisdictions has changed since the 19th century. It compares and contrasts the major elements of the intestacy schemes in Australia, England and Singapore. It is argued that in Australia and England an important priority is the protection of the economic well-being of the surviving spouse (broadly defined). In recent decades, law reformers in both jurisdictions have articulated an emerging priority for intestacy law: the enhancement of the economic well-being of the aged surviving spouse. Singapore's statutory intestacy regime has remained stable since its implementation in 1967. It evidences the concern that not only the spouse, but also that in certain circumstances, lineal descendants and ascendants ought to inherit from the intestate. Therefore, the concept of immediate family not only includes the spouse, but the issue and parents of the intestate.

This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared—exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks—and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no law on data protection until the passage of the Personal Data Protection Act 2012. The passage of that law suggests the possibilities and limitations of an approach to data protection that eschews both the European Union's privacy-rights-based approach and the ad hoc sectoral patches that characterise the U.S. approach to the subject.

It is commonly assumed that the Court of Appeal rejected a doctrine of good faith in contract law in Ng Giap Hon v. Westcomb Securities Pte Ltd, and as a result there has been no serious debate in Singapore of the proper role, nature and function of good faith. This article explores the definitional, normative and methodological aspects of the debate, and argues for the introduction of a duty of good faith in Singapore contract law. The content of such a duty must nonetheless be fact-sensitive in order to preserve contractual autonomy and commercial certainty. A series of recent decisions is also examined to demonstrate the courts' support for such an approach.

A plaintiff-investor has been induced by pre-contractual misrepresentations to enter into an investment contract with a defendant-bank. This article discusses some of the issues which must be addressed in such cases. Although triggered by recent litigation between investors and banks, the discussion draws on basic commercial law principles which are of general application. Apart from the novel doctrine of 'contractual estoppel', there are alternative orthodox tools of the trade readily deployable by a commercial lawyer. These alternative means of reasoning include basic and well-established contract law principles of misrepresentation and traditional agency principles of authority, which have been overlooked because they have been overshadowed by contractual estoppel in current discourse. The point of this article is simply to take us back to basics by bringing these alternate analyses back into focus.

On 21 August 2012, the Court of Appeal issued a landmark decision that elucidates the conditions under which a person has legal standing to challenge legislation for being in violation of a constitutional right in Singapore. In allowing the appeal and finding that the appellant in the case of Tan Eng Hong had locus standi to argue that s. 377A of the Penal Code infringes art. 12 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, the decision enabled the fate of a contentious criminal provision to be determined by a full hearing. As doctrinal analysis of this decision will undoubtedly be forthcoming and abundant, this commentary will examine its implications from a different angle.

In corporate administration, procedures, and their due compliance, are often of as much significance as the outcomes of the proceedings they regulate. The consequence of a failure to comply with procedures, whether laid down statutorily or in the company's constitution, is often the invalidation of the subject proceeding. Such invalidation may perhaps be justified on the basis that faithful compliance does much to foster a perception that the outcomes determined at the proceedings so held are fair, a perception that is vitally important to the acceptability of the outcome by all concerned. Nevertheless, it is also the case that corporate proceedings should not be invalidated only by reason of an over-concern for matters of form, and indeed, there are potentially many situations of procedural non-compliance, or irregularities, that might fall within this category. Section 392 of the Companies Act is crafted to achieve some balance between the two extremes.