Chan Sek Keong

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3rd Chief Justice of Singapore
Chan Sek Keong (陈锡强)

Incumbent
Assumed office 11 April 2006
Preceded by	Yong Pung How
Attorney-General of Singapore
In office 1 May 1992 – 10 April 2006
Preceded by	Tan Boon Teik
Succeeded by	Chao Hick Tin
Judge
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 July 1988
Judicial Commissioner
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 July 1986

Alma mater	National University of Singapore Faculty of Law

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chan.

Chan Sek Keong (simplified Chinese: 陈锡强; pinyin: Chén Xīqiáng) is the current Chief Justice of Singapore since taking over from former Chief Justice, Yong Pung How, on 11 April 2006.^[1]^[2] Chief Justice Chan was formerly the Attorney-General of Singapore. The Honourable Chao Hick Tin took over as the Attorney-General of Singapore on 11 April 2006.

Chan was born in Ipoh, Malaysia, the third of five children. His father was a bank clerk in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. When the Japanese Occupation began, they fled to Taiping to stay with his grandfather. In those years he received his early education in King Edward VII School in Taiping together with his elder brother, and continued schooling at the Anderson School when they moved back to Ipoh after the war ended in 1945.
Chan who was eight years old then, was placed together with other children who missed the normal entry age requirement of six years, by the school. At that time, Anderson School was a multi-racial and the premier government school in Ipoh equivalent to the Raffles Institution of Singapore. He was happy in school, and mixed well with students from other races. In 1955, Chan scored 8 distinctions for his Senior Cambridge School Certificate results - one of the best in Malaya in that year. He was offered a teaching bursary but being become a teacher was not what he wanted for his life. So he went to the Sixth Form to try to get a place in the university. It was in his second year of the Sixth Form course, that his English literature teacher, Dr Etherton told him that a professor of law from the University of Malaya (now National University of Singapore) would be visiting the school and promoting students in his Form to a new law course offered by the University. Dr Etherton saw Chan's potential in law and urged him to go for it, and the young Chan at that time was clueless about law and the career prospects a law degree could offer. He took Dr Etherton's advice, and went for the interview conducted by Professor Sheridan.^[3]

Chan Sek Keong, along with the other students became the first batch of students admitted to the Law Department in the University of Malaya in 1957. In 1961, he was among the inaugural group of 22 students to graduate from the Law Faculty of the University of Malaya in Singapore. He began his career with Messrs Bannon & Bailey in Kuala Lumpur as a petitioner, under the pupillage of Peter Mooney. Six months later he learnt that the law degree he graduated with, had not been recognised for admission to the Bar as the necessary legislation had not been enacted yet. The legislation was passed shortly, and Chan immediately applied for a shortening of my period of formal pupillage but it was rejected by the Bar Council of Malaysia. R Ramani, a leading advocate and Chairman of the Bar Council appeared personally to object to his petition on grounds that he had provided only one reason for abridgment of time when the relevant provision in the Act referred to “reasons”. Fortunately, the petition was heard by Justice H T Ong who passed his judgement that the provision should be interpreted to include only one reason. Chan learnt his first important lesson of statutory interpretations in reality, as opposed to textbook interpretations.^[3]

After being admitted to the Bar on 31 January 1962, he practiced for a number of years before being appointed the first Judicial Commissioner of Singapore on 1 July 1986. Two years later, he became a Judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore and in 1992, he was appointed Attorney-General of Singapore. As Attorney General, he submitted in 1997 that although the Parliamentary Elections Act forbade unauthorised persons to loiter within 200 metres of polling stations on polling day, this did not apply to unauthorised persons 'inside' said stations. This was in response to the Workers' Party's complaint that People's Action Party members were loitering in polling stations, contrary to the provisions of that Act.

He relinquished the position on 11 April 2006, when he was appointed Chief Justice of the Republic of Singapore.