Wong Souk Yee v AG 94 [2019] SGCA 25 Having said that, we accept that where a serious question of constitutional law is raised, the court may in its discretion depart from the usual rule that costs follow the event. It may be noted that no order for costs was made against the unsuccessful applicant in some recent decisions concerning serious questions of constitutional law: see Tan Eng Hong v Attorney-General [2012] 4 SLR 476 and Lim Meng Suang. We do not intend to be unduly prescriptive in setting out the circumstances in which the discretion may be exercised in this manner, save to say that a court proposing to depart from the usual rule that costs follow the event should explain its reasons for doing so. 95 In the present case, we note that we have: (a) concluded that the issues raised in this appeal warranted leave being given to the Appellant to commence judicial review proceedings; (b) rejected the Respondent’s primary case, which was to urge us to adopt a rectifying or an updating construction in order to arrive at the Respondent’s First Interpretation of Art 49(1); and (c) reversed the basis and the effect of the Judge’s decision, even though the result, at least as far as the Appellant is concerned, remains the same. 96 In the circumstances, we consider that there should be no order as to costs either here or in the court below. Conclusion 97 We therefore dismiss the appeal, save on the issue of leave, and save that we set aside the Judge’s order as to the costs of the proceedings below and make no order as to the costs of the appeal. The usual consequential orders will 39