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Tan Cheng Bock v AG [2017] SGCA 50 17.—(1) There shall be a President of Singapore, who shall be elected by Parliament. [emphasis added] (2) The Appellant’s arguments 81 We turn to the Appellant’s principal arguments in relation to the interpretation of these provisions. 82 The Appellant’s case hinges largely on the definition of “President” in Art 2 read with certain provisions of the IA. His case may be summarised in this way: (a) Art 2 defines a President as one who is elected under “this Constitution”. This raises a question as to what “this Constitution” means. (b) Section 8(3) of the IA provides that any citation of an Act shall be construed as a reference to the Act as amended from time to time by any other Act. Section 15(2)(a) similarly provides that where a written law repeals any former written law, a reference in the written law to the repealed provision shall be construed as a reference to the re-enacted provision. (c) Parliament repealed Chapter 1, Part V of the Constitution (1980 Reprint), Art 17, which provided for the President to be elected by Parliament and replaced it with the Elected Presidency under the 1991 Amendment. (d) Therefore, the reference in Art 2 to a President elected under “this Constitution” must be a reference to Presidents elected under “this Constitution” as amended by the 1991 Amendment and it must therefore 43

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Tan Chen Bock v. Attorney General

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether the reserved election clause solely permits choosing from the terms of office of Presidents elected by the citizens, or also includes those chosen by Parliament.

Alleged Acts: The case comes before the court on Art. 19B(1) and 164. Art. 19B(1) introducing a reserved election where the office of the President is reserved for candidates of a particular community if no person from that particular community has held office for the five most recent terms of office. The law defined community as Chinese, Malay, Indian, and other minority communities. Three individuals held the office for five terms and were not Malay. Therefore, the 2017 election was reserved for a candidate from that community. The appellant argues that this does not apply to those candidates elected by Parliament, but only to those elected by the people, which would not reserve the office for a Malay candidate.

Procedural history: The appellant filed suit in the High Court seeking voidance of Art. 19 and 164. The High Court dismissed the application on July 7, 2017. The appellant appealed to the current court and the Court heard the case on expedited basis because the Government sought to issue a writ of election for the next presidential election. The appellant appealed the case stating that lower court erroneously stated that “President” applies to those both elected by the people and Parliament, that the last term of President Wee was set as the first term in the five, and that President Wee was elected by the citizens.

Summary: The court determined that the appellant’s argument was one based primarily on the text of the constitution. The Constitution defines a President as one elected under the Constitution, not necessarily those elected under 2016 Amendments. The appellant argued that only Presidents that underwent the prior reform process may not be counted or considered Presidents. However, the court rejected this because the legislative intent was not to preclude any of the previous Presidents under this and create an unworkable standard. Parliament has the authority to determine what “five more recent terms” means under the Constitution.

Conclusion: Parliament had the power to specify that President Wee’s last term was the first term in the five term count. The court dismissed the appeal.

Legal Issue(s)

Candidate Registration

Region: Asia-Pacific

Country: Singapore

Language of Decision

English

Court: Appellate Court

Election Type: Presidential

Date of decision: Aug 23, 2017

Geolocation

Latitude: 1.289765826

Longitude: 103.8511735

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

tan-cheng-bock-v-attorney-general-2017-sgca-50-(amended-on-131017)-pdf.pdf
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Election Judgments - IFES

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Tan Chen Bock v. Attorney General

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