jurisprudence.’
4
The Bench rejects a blind adoption of rights-based liberalism
which valorises rights claims to the exclusion of competing rights, goods and duties.
There appears little danger of a ‘juristocracy’ emerging in the near future, while
there is hope of a Bench which defends the rule of law more robustly, as manifest
in cases confirming judicial review over prosecutorial discretion and clemency
powers.^5
The first decade saw two presidential elections: that in 2005 was uncontested;
while that in 2011 was heavily contested by four candidates, with the establishment
candidate, former deputy prime minister Tony Tan, narrowly winning with 35. 19
per cent of the votes,^6 and becoming Singapore’s seventh president. The preselec-
tion qualification criteria^7 have been criticised as resulting in too small a pool of
potential candidates (estimated at between 400 and 800 ), creating the spectre
of non-contested elections, as in 1999 and 2005 , where only one candidate got
a certificate of eligibility from the Presidential Elections Committee.
8
While
having contested elections bodes well for democratic accountability, the popular
misconception of the president’s role as a proxy for parliamentary opposition was
disquieting.
Grafted onto the imported Westminster system of parliamentary democracy,
the unique innovation of the elected presidency was introduced in 1990 ,
9
with
specific, limited powers primarily designed to check an untrammelled parliamen-
tary executive. This institution is a key pillar of ‘fiscal constitutionalism’,
which emplaces constraints on financial policy primarily through requiring presi-
dential approval for certain transactions and budgets which ‘draw down’ on ‘past
reserves’.^10 The president assented to such a budget for the first time during the
2009 global financial crisis. The ‘harmonious working relationship’, a key
Cabinet–president governance standard set out in a White Paper, displayed no
spectre of gridlock.^11 Notably, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) government,
(^4) Opening Address, CJ Chan Sek Keong, Developments in Singapore Law 2006 – 10 Confer-
ence, 24 February 2011.
(^5) Judicial review of prosecutorial discretion avails for bad faith or violations of constitutional
equality guarantees:Ramalingam Ravinthranv.AG[ 2012 ] SGCA 2. Art. 22 P regulated
pardoning powers are reviewable on grounds of procedural non-compliance and bad faith:
Yong Vui Kongv.AG[ 2011 ] SGCA 9.
(^6) The closest runner-up, Tan Cheng Bock, a former PAP backbencher, polled 37. 85 per cent
of the votes.
(^7) Article 19 , Republic of Singapore constitution.
(^8) This constitutional body is established under Art. 18. See Li-ann Thio, ‘(S)electing the
President of Singapore: diluting democracy?’ ( 2007 ) 5 ( 3 )ICON 526.
(^9) See Thio Li-ann,A Treatise on Singapore Constitutional Law(Singapore: Academy
Publishing, 2012 ), Chapter 9.
(^10) ‘Past reserves’ are distinct from ‘current reserves’, and are not accumulated by the present
government: see Art. 142 ( 4 ), Singapore constitution.
(^11) A White Paper set out various non-binding principles for determining and safeguarding the
accumulated reserves of the government and the fifth schedule statutory boards and