Tan Cheng Bock v AG (a) [2017] SGCA 50 Because we consider that the earliest possible election that can be reserved is the 2017 election, it stands to reason that if Parliament were to start the count of the “5 most recent terms” under Art 19B(1) from before the appointed date, there would be no purpose in Parliament specifying as the first term any term before President Wee’s last term. We say this because that is the earliest of the five most recent terms preceding the 2017 election. Furthermore, this is also correct as a matter of logic. There would simply be no rational cause for Parliament to specify a term earlier than that because it would have the same effect as specifying President Wee’s last term as the first term. Parliament must be presumed to have acted rationally; it would not therefore have conferred on itself a power (in this case, the power to specify a term of office before President Wee’s last term) which is unnecessary for achieving a result which could equally have been reached without that power. This is an aspect of the principle we have stated above that Parliament does not legislate in vain. To this extent, and with respect, we disagree with the Judge’s observation that, in specifying the first term of office, there “is no limitation in Art 164 on how far back�� Parliament can go (Judgment at [51(c)]). In our judgment, there is an implicit limit of five terms. (b) Of the five terms of office of the President preceding the 2017 election, the following may be noted: (i) None of the Presidents in question held the office pursuant to an election under the present iteration of the Constitution. This much is self-evident from the fact that extensive amendments were made, in the 2016 Amendment, to the relevant parts of the Constitution, including the eligibility 38