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This judgment is subject to final editorial corrections approved by the court and/or redaction pursuant to the publisher’s duty in compliance with the law, for publication in LawNet and/or the Singapore Law Reports. Tan Cheng Bock v Attorney-General [2017] SGCA 50 Court of Appeal — Civil Appeal No 124 of 2017 Sundaresh Menon CJ, Judith Prakash JA, Steven Chong JA, Chua Lee Ming J and Kannan Ramesh J 31 July 2017 23 August 2017 Judgment reserved. Sundaresh Menon CJ (delivering the judgment of the court): Introduction 1 This appeal turns on the correct interpretation of two provisions in the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (1985 Rev Ed, 1999 Reprint) (“Constitution”), Arts 19B and 164. Both provisions were inserted into the Constitution by the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Act 2016 (Act 28 of 2016) (“2016 Amendment”), which was passed on 9 November 2016 and took effect on 1 April 2017. They were part of a raft of changes affecting the office of the President that were implemented by the 2016 Amendment.

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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

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