Wong Souk Yee v AG
[2019] SGCA 25
material except to confirm this ordinary meaning. On this basis, the Appellant
urges this court to give effect to the asserted requirement for a vacancy to be
filled by:
(a)
interpreting s 24(2A) of the PEA as impliedly containing a
requirement that all the remaining Members of a GRC must vacate their
seats if one seat in the GRC becomes vacant; and/or
(b)
compelling all the remaining Members of a GRC to resign from
their seats pursuant to Art 46(2)(c) of the Constitution, which provides
that the seat of a Member shall become vacant if the Member writes to
the Speaker of Parliament to resign his or her seat.
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These arguments rest on a premise that is implicit in the Appellant’s
interpretation of Art 49(1): where one Member of a GRC vacates his or her seat,
the applicable “election” that is called for by Art 49(1) is a by-election for all
the seats in the GRC as a whole. To some degree, this view is mandated by the
fact, which was common ground between the parties before us, that there is
simply no mechanism for a contest for a single seat in a GRC in any of the
applicable statutory instruments.
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The reliefs sought by the Appellant are founded on her proffered
interpretation of Art 49(1). Hence, whether the Appellant can succeed depends
on a question of constitutional interpretation, to which the framework set out in
Tan Cheng Bock applies. The first step involves ascertaining the possible
interpretations of Art 49(1), having regard to its text and its context within the
Constitution as a whole. In that exercise, it is also important to discern whether
the ordinary meaning of the provision is “clear”, “ambiguous or obscure on its
face”, or “leads to a result that is manifestly absurd or unreasonable” in order to
determine the proper role of extraneous material.
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