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.
Wong Souk Yee
v
Attorney-General
[2019] SGCA 25
Court of Appeal — Civil Appeal No 73 of 2018
Sundaresh Menon CJ, Andrew Phang Boon Leong JA, Judith Prakash JA, Tay
Yong Kwang JA and Steven Chong JA
16 January 2019
10 April 2019
Judgment reserved.
Sundaresh Menon CJ (delivering the judgment of the court):
Introduction
1
On 7 August 2017, Mdm Halimah Yacob (“Mdm Halimah”) resigned
her seat as a Member of Parliament (“Member”) for Marsiling-Yew Tee Group
Representation Constituency (“MYT GRC”) to stand for the presidential
election which was to be held the following month (“the 2017 Presidential
Election”). No by-election was called in the aftermath of her resignation. In
Vellama d/o Marie Muthu v Attorney-General [2013] 4 SLR 1 (“Vellama”), we
held at [82] that the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (1985 Rev Ed,
1999 Reprint) (“the Constitution”) imposes a duty upon the Prime Minister to
call a by-election to fill casual vacancies of elected Members that might arise
from time to time. That decision was made in the specific context of a Single
Member Constituency (“SMC”), and we concluded there that the duty in