The Rules of Court 2021, effective April 2022, are meant to modernise the litigation process for civil cases by enhancing the efficiency and speed of adjudication and keeping costs at reasonable levels. At the heart of this discernible shift to a less adversarial system of civil litigation is the enlargement of the court's discretionary powers vis-à-vis case management. This article considers, however, the potential ripple effects of the new legislation on the contiguous domain of evidence law. Three distinct but related areas of evidence law most likely to be impacted have been identified. First, would the introduction of the "interests of justice" test across various provisions of the Rules of Court 2021 have any bearing on the court's existing powers regarding the admissibility of evidence? Secondly, how would the reception of expert opinion now operate, given what seems to be a fundamental change in terms of party autonomy over the choice of expert and the threshold to be met for allowing expert opinion? Finally, can the current common law position that draws a link between confidentiality and privilege still be sustained?
In response to the sudden proliferation of hobbyist unmanned aerial vehicles used for digital imaging – or "drones", as they are popularly, but rather inaccurately, labelled – the Singapore government enacted the Unmanned Aircraft (Public Safety and Security) Act in 2015 and also amended various existing laws relating to air navigation. However, in view of the rapid evolution in drone technology and the ever-expanding range of useful applications brought about by drones, what are some of the challenges that would be faced when enforcing the law against recreational users of aerial imaging in particular, and what are some of the changes that should be made to the law when the matter is revisited for review in the future? Through an appraisal of the current state of drone technology and a comparison with the rules that have been adopted in various other jurisdictions around the world, this article considers how our existing laws on recreational users of drones can be improved, and also highlights emerging issues that would eventually warrant regulatory attention here and elsewhere. The matters to be discussed here include whether limits should be placed on distance, speed, and people proximity, whether drones truly pose a threat to privacy and other related rights, and how drone safety can be enhanced independently of a permits and permissions system.
In 2012, Singapore amended its Misuse of Drugs to give courts hearing capital drug trafficking cases the discretion to replace the default death penalty with life imprisonment and caning, provided that the accused person can show that he was merely a drug courier and the prosecution certifies that he had substantively assisted the authorities in disrupting drug trafficking activities. The Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal have since made important pronouncements on the 2012 amendments, but several challenges remain: first, whether the privilege against self-incrimination has been further eroded; secondly, whether an accused person can invoke the statutory relief of being a courier only at sentencing; thirdly, whether it is appropriate to leave the certification decision solely to the prosecution; and finally, whether guidelines as to when the death sentence is appropriate should have been prescribed. These challenges ought to be given serious legislative or judicial consideration as the criminal justice system in Singapore continues to evolve in response to changing public perceptions of due process and crime control. The first three challenges, in particular, may have important ramifications for potentially innocent accused persons as it is submitted that the law as it stands may incentivise some of them to plead guilty from the outset to maximise their chances of avoiding the death penalty. As there are still a number of jurisdictions that retain the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking offences, this article may also be of comparative interest, especially since there appears to be a dearth of literature on the discretionary death penalty for drug offences.
In the last few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of remote-controlled copters – often given the convenient but misleading epithets of unmanned aerial vehicles or "drones" – by recreational users to capture aerial photographs and videos on an unprecedented scale. Asia is no exception. The convergence of cutting-edge technological developments in gyroscopic gimbals, long-range wireless transmissions, GPS-enabled stabilisation, GPS-enabled flightpath-preprogramming, first-person-views, and compact digital imaging has led to the proliferation of affordable camera-carrying "drones" that even hobbyists can pilot with reasonable safety. Thus far, despite purported controversies there have not been any reports of serious mishaps involving the use of these rotor-propelled copters – mainly because these copters are incapable of heavy payloads and, in any event, have a series of fail-safe tools. Yet, there has been a consistent stream of public concern relating to issues of safety, privacy, and even the protection of monopolised commercial interests. Lost in the paranoid cacophony is a question that warrants proper legislative reflection: how can such tools be regulated in a way that is proportionate and sensible? There are some jurisdictions that have already tabled legislation to regulate recreational droning, while many others are planning to introduce the same, while some are relying on clearly anachronistic legislation as a stop-gap measure. Can the law keep pace with new technology, or is the challenge too formidable? How is Asia – the principal manufacturer, exporter, and user of many of these copters – responding to the situation? This paper, presented at the 2015 ASLI Conference, will examine some of the laws in the region and beyond to demonstrate how the right balance between the freedom of expression and freedom to create art, and the purported competing demands of safety, privacy, and commercial interests can be struck – or not. Questions relating to the appropriate height, distance, weight, airbase-proximity, and line of sight limits; the necessity of a licensing and/or training scheme; and the supposed problems of privacy intrusion and obstruction of commercial interests will be addressed. Ultimately, however, what is needed first and foremost is a complete mind-set shift in the legislators before one goes down the path of no return.
In the last few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of remote-controlled copters or "drones" by recreational users to capture aerial photographs and videos on an unprecedented scale. The convergence of cutting-edge technological developments in gyroscopic gimbals, long-range wireless transmissions, GPS-enabled stabilisation and flightpath-preprogramming, first-person-views, and compact digital imaging has led to the proliferation of these camera-carrying devices that even hobbyists can pilot with reasonable safety. However, there has been a consistent stream of public concern relating to issues of safety, privacy, and disruption of commercial interests. Lost in the paranoid cacophony is a question that warrants proper legislative reflection: how can these drones be regulated in a way that is proportionate and sensible? With Singapore's recently enacted Unmanned Aircraft Act as the focal point, this article will compare and contrast the various regulations around the world to determine where the best balance has been struck between the freedom to create art and the purported competing demands of safety, privacy, and commercial interests.
In many jurisdictions, the rules of evidence can often be instrumental in determining the outcome of a dispute. But to what extent can evidence law be controlled by codification, or is it better to leave its regulation and development to the judges via common law? In an attempt to bridge the gap between the rules of an antiquated evidence statute and the modern realities of practice, Singapore's Evidence Act was amended in 2012. Certain relevancy provisions were amended to allow greater admissibility of evidence, while new provisions were introduced to act as a check against abuse. However, it will be argued that these amendments have changed the paradigm of the admissibility of evidence under the statute and have also done little to clarify existing ambiguities in the law. This paper explains why and, given the near-complete absence of case law that has interpreted the amendments, offers a few tentative suggestions on possible ways forward. To the extent that Singapore's Evidence Act was largely modelled after Stephen's Indian Evidence Act of 1872, Singapore's 2012 amendments may be of comparative interest to readers in a number of jurisdictions around the world particularly those in Asia such as Bangladesh, Brunei, Burma, Malaysia and Sri Lanka – these countries had adopted the iconic statute to varying degrees – and of course, to India itself. Many of these jurisdictions have also not made major amendments to their evidence legislation, and therefore there may be something to learn ahead of time from Singapore's experiment.
The article offers information on the history, evolution and significance of the new discretionary death penalty legislation for drug couriers in Singapore under the application of the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA). It discusses the judicial decision of the Singaporean High Court in the case of Public Prosecutor v. Chum Tat Suan in which the Court convicted the accused with chareges of importing of more than 94.96g of diamorphine into Singapore that was punishable under section 33 of the MDA.
A riot involving hundreds of foreign labourers broke out in Little India, Singapore, on 8 December 2013. Only the second riot to occur in more than 40 years in fairly tranquil Singapore, the damage was extensive as rioters destroyed police and emergency vehicles and even injured dozens of police and civil defence personnel. The authorities only needed a few days to complete the investigations and shortly after, some of the alleged rioters were arrested and charged, while some of them were repatriated. The swiftness of the entire process prompted harsh criticism from international and local human rights groups, who claimed that the authorities had not been accountable and transparent enough, particularly with regard to the labourers who were repatriated. Specifically, they alleged a lack of due process and arbitrariness in the repatriation. The Singapore government defended its position by maintaining that everything it did was in line with Singapore law and even international standards as well. This article considers the claims from both sides by examining all of the relevant laws and concludes that while international law in the context of repatriation does uphold the supremacy of state sovereignty to a rather large extent (or at least implicitly permits repatriation without judicial process), the seemingly innocuous issuance of stern warnings by the police in the aftermath of the riot may have unintended legal and practical ramifications, in that they effectively extract pleas of guilt without the proper adjudicatory process of the courts, rendering those affected de facto ex-criminals.
Singapore amended the expert opinion evidence provisions in its Evidence Act (EA) in 2012. The criteria for admissibility have been broadened, but the courts are now also expressly given the discretion to exclude relevant expert opinion evidence if it is 'in the interests of justice'. This article explains why the 2012 amendments have raised more questions than answered them. First, Parliament did not appear to have properly appreciated the distinction—as conceptualised by the EA—between legal and logical relevance and relevance and admissibility. Second, it did not appear to have appreciated the distinction between general and specific relevance. Third, the introduction of the judicial discretion is a concept that neither comports with the common law position nor coheres with the EA. Fourth, whether there should have been continued applicability of the 'ultimate issue rule' could have been clarified. At bottom, Parliament did not demonstrate a keen understanding of the conceptualisation, structure, and principles of the antiquated EA. A framework for determining relevance and admissibility of evidence that is in accordance with the EA is thus proposed. As a number of Commonwealth jurisdictions share similar legislation to the EA, this article may be of interest to such jurisdictions as well.
