Wong Souk Yee v AG
[2019] SGCA 25
undoubtedly be a significant substantive change to the operation of the
provision. Article 49(1) would be transformed into a provision which
differentiates between GRCs on the one hand and SMCs on the other as to the
circumstances in which a by-election must be called. In our judgment, effecting
such a substantive change by way of an updating construction cannot be
justified, given that it is unclear whether Parliament intended for Art 49(1) to
be amended in this fashion to begin with (see [54]–[56] above).
Our decision on the proper interpretation of Art 49(1)
70
Given that neither a rectifying nor an updating construction can be
applied to Art 49(1), only two possible interpretations remain: the Appellant’s
Interpretation and the Respondent’s Second Interpretation. It is common ground
that both of these interpretations would not require adjustments to the language
of Art 49(1).
71
The Appellant’s Interpretation is severely hampered by the fact that it is
antithetical to the purposive approach mandated by s 9A(1) of the IA. It
involves compelling all the remaining Members of a GRC to vacate their seats
in the event of a vacancy in a single seat in the GRC, thereby forcing a byelection to be held. It is common ground that this would lead to the one result
that Parliament had expressly intended to avoid when it implemented the GRC
scheme (see [46] and [52]–[53] above).
72
This leaves the Respondent’s Second Interpretation, which we accept is
not ideal, in that it results in leaving the Constitution silent on the filling of a
vacant seat in a GRC. However, three points should be borne in mind. The first
is that the role of the court is not to fashion the ideal formulation of the words
of Art 49(1). Instead, we are constrained to work with the text as it stands and
to pick from the range of permissible interpretations the interpretation that
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