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Tan Cheng Bock v AG (a) [2017] SGCA 50 The word “President” does not on the face of Arts 19B and 164 refer only to a President elected by the citizens (at [58]). Art 19B does not distinguish between Presidents elected by Parliament and those elected by the citizens (at [59]). It would have been easy for Parliament to draw such a distinction (at [61]), especially given that Parliament had explicitly excluded from the ambit of Art 19B those who exercise the powers and discharge the functions of the President when the office is vacant or when the President is under a temporary disability (at [62]). (b) Although Art 2 defines a “President” as one who is “elected under this Constitution”, this does not mean that the “President” must be one who is elected by the citizens; it could also include a President elected by Parliament (at [65(a)]). The fact that Art 17A of the Constitution, which was introduced as part of the 1991 Amendment, provides that Presidents are to be “elected by the citizens of Singapore” does not mean that the definition of “President” in Art 2 is limited to popularly-elected Presidents; this is because Art 17A was introduced in 1991 and sets out the position that prevails today (at [65(b)]). But the definition of “President” in Art 2 was introduced before that in the Constitution (1980 Reprint) and has not changed since then; the fact that Parliament retained this definition unchanged when it enacted the 2016 Amendment, suggested that the definition of “President” would include Presidents elected by Parliament. Such an interpretation would also ensure that the acts of those Presidents as well as any immunities conferred on them would not be rendered invalid. (c) The phrase “term of office” in Art 19B(1) does not mean that only a President who has served a term of six years falls within the scope of Art 19B(1). That argument assumes that “term of office” must be 11

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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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