Lex Rex or Rex Lex ? Competing Conceptions of the Rule of Law in Singapore

ARTICLES LEX REX OR REX LEX? COMPETING CONCEPTIONS OF THE RULE OF LAW IN SINGAPORE Li-ann Thio* If the government had failed to establish the basics for politi- cal stability and social cohesion, the Rule of Law would have become an empty slogan in a broken-backed Singapore. But we have succeeded, and the Rule of Law today in Singapore is no clich6. -Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, 19901 Despite the trappings, the Rule of Law in Singapore today has given way to empty legalism. -International Human Rights Committee of the New York City Bar Association, 19912 I. A. INTRODUCTION THE RULE OF LAW AS CERTAINTY AND/OR JUSTICE: BETWEEN FORM AND SUBSTANCE While the Rule of Law is not formally enshrined in the Sin- gapore constitution's text, it has through practice entered Singa- pore's constitutional and political lexicon. In opposing political absolutism, it avers that no man is above the law and the law's supremacy (lex rex) in contradistinction to the rule of man (rex * BA (Oxon)(Hons); LL.M (Harv); Ph.D. (Cantab); Barrister (GI), Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference on Rule of Law in Asia: Competing Con- ception, 20-21 June 2002, Hong Kong University. 1. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Speech at the Opening of the Singapore Law Academy (Aug. 31, 1990), in 2 S Ac LJ 155, 156 (1990). 2. Beatrice S. Frank et al., The Decline of the Rule of Law in Malaysia and Singapore Part H - Singapore, A Report of the Committee on International Human Rights of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 46 THE RECORD 7, 17 (1991) hereinafter, NEW YORK BAR RECORD.