Talk:Law of Singapore

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[edit] Merging 'Law of Singapore' and 'Law Enforcement in Singapore'

I think that 'Law Enforcement in Singapore' should be merged with 'Singapore Police Force' as it doesn't really add anything more to the latter article. Jacklee 14:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That does appear so in its present state. There is actually much scope for expansion, since the SPF isnt the only law-enforcing agency in Singapore.--Huaiwei 14:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, perhaps there are two ways to go about it. One is to have an article called 'Law Enforcement in Singapore' and talk about the Singapore Police Force and other law-enforcement agencies (eg, the Central Narcotics Bureau and Singapore Customs) in it. The other way is to do away with a general article on law enforcement and just have separate articles on the various law enforcement agencies, or reduce the law enforcement article to a page containing links to the other articles. I think the latter option may be preferable. Jacklee 00:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Oppose they are different concepts, so even if they happen to be presented as the same concepts, we should remedy that instead of concur and effect any conflation. Chensiyuan 12:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm not clear what you mean. Are you suggesting that 'Law Enforcement in Singapore' should be left as a distinct article and beefed up with more information (ie, the first option I suggested)? Jacklee 21:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
yes Chensiyuan 09:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sharia law

Should there be a section on the place of Sharia courts in Singapore? -- Paul 22:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Syariah law -- that is, the family and succession law aspects of it -- does form part of the law in Singapore under the Administration of Muslim Law Act. However, I'm wondering if it is better to have a separate article on that, and perhaps just a brief mention in 'Law of Singapore' and a link to that article. Jacklee 21:37, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed major changes to this article

I've been making major changes to this article to improve its content, and propose to make the following changes:

  • Merging the 'Censorship' section with 'Censorship in Singapore' (and thus deleting it from this article).
  • Creating a new article entitled 'Criminal law in Singapore' (and thus deleting the 'Criminal law' section from this article).

Does anyone have views on this before I go ahead? Jacklee 08:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

what you said makes sense. Chensiyuan 08:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I compared the contents of the 'Censorship' section with the 'Censorship in Singapore' article, and found that the article repeated much of what was in the former in greater detail. I've therefore deleted the 'Censorship' section. I've also created a new article 'Criminal law of Singapore' and transferred the contents of the 'Criminal law' section there. 'Criminal law of Singapore' is currently a stub and needs expansion. Jacklee 10:24, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Great work in expanding the article. I would like to suggest an organisation of the article. There seems to be a lack of an overview article providing an introduction to the Law or judicial system in Singapore. Such an article would cover major topics of the subject, such as
  • History of Law in Singapore
  • Sources of Law
  • Constitution of Singapore
    • Constitutional Rights
  • Criminal law (or Penal Code)
    • Capital punishment
    • Internal Security Act, etc
  • Other laws
    • Corporate law
    • Family law
    • Tort law (etc.)
  • Judicial system
    • Legal procedure
  • Legal profession
  • Law enforcement
  • Review (comment, criticism, controversy, etc)
In other words, I'm suggesting a Wikipedia:Summary style. In a summary-styled article, each topic is described briefly (about 3-5 paragraphs), and there is a pointer to the main article that describes the topic in greater details. There would be some duplicate content, but the advantage is greater, as this would result in a stable overview article that is more accessible to readers. The creation of daughter articles also facilitates expansion for these more specific topics. The summary-style is popular in wikipedia, especially for articles which are more mature and of general topic. Examples of sg-articles adopting summary-style are Singapore, History of Singapore, Politics of Singapore, Education in Singapore. This article seems to be a suitable candidate for such an overview article, you may want to consider using this approach as you expands the topic further. Thanks for your contribution. --Vsion 05:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be a good idea. The current article is too heavily weighted in favour of the history of Singapore law and sources of Singapore law, which could be articles of their own. Producing a summary style article will probably take quite a long time – perhaps priority should be given to producing the individual detailed articles that you've proposed, then combining the introductory paragraphs of these articles to create the 'Law of Singapore' summary article. Jacklee 14:14, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of "Legal developments" section

I've removed the "Legal developments" section from the article (the text removed is below) as without dedicated editors concentrating on this section it is difficult to keep up to date, and in any case the article is already a bit too long. If it is thought that , I would suggest that new articles entitled "Developments in Singapore law in 2006", "Developments in Singapore law in 2007", etc., be created. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 01:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal developments

January 2007

  • In November 2006, a 17-year-old boy, Garyl Tan Jia Luo, was arrested for tapping into his neighbour's wireless Internet connection.[1] He faced up to three years' imprisonment and a fine under the Computer Misuse Act.[2] On 19 December, Tan pleaded guilty to the charge,[3] and on 16 January 2007 he became the first person in Singapore to be convicted of the offence. He was sentenced by the Community Court to 18 months' probation, half of which was to be served at a boys' home. For the remaining nine months, he had to stay indoors from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am. He was also sentenced to 80 hours of community service and banned from using the Internet for 18 months; his parents risked forfeiting a S$5,000 bond if he failed to abide by the ban. Tan was also given the option of enlisting early for National Service. If he did so, he would not have to serve whatever remained of his sentence.[4]
  • As of 31 January, Singapore had 3,347 practising lawyers, down from 3,521 in 2000. Since about 1,600 law graduates qualified to become advocates and solicitors, this represented a net loss of 174 practitioners.[5]

February 2007

  • On 4 January 2007, a second man, Lin Zhenghuang, was charged for using his neighbour's unsecured wireless network to post a bomb hoax on-line. In July 2005, Lin had posted a message entitled "Breaking News – Toa Payoh Hit by Bomb Attacks" on an on-line forum managed by HardwareZone. Alarmed by the message, a forum user reported it to the authorities through the Government of Singapore's eCitizen website. Lin faced an additional 60 charges for using his notebook computer to illegally access the wireless networks of nine people in his neighbourhood repeatedly.[6] Lin pleaded guilty to one charge under the Telecommunications Act[7] and another nine under the Computer Misuse Act on 31 January. He apologised for his actions, claiming he had acted out of "stupidness" and not due to any "malicious or evil intent".[8] On 7 February he was sentenced by District Judge Francis Tseng to three months' jail and a S$4,000 fine. The judge also set sentencing guidelines for future 'mooching' cases, stating that offenders would be liable to fines and not to imprisonment unless offences were "committed in order to facilitate the commission of or to avoid detection for some more serious offence", as it was in Lin's case.[9]

March 2007

  • 2 March – The members of the advisory board of the new School of Law of the Singapore Management University (SMU) are announced. The board will be chaired by former Chief Justice Yong Pung How, who has also been appointed Distinguished Fellow of the School. The other members of the board are:
    According to SMU President Prof. Howard Hunter, the new law school, which will open in August 2007 with 90 students, has already received a "substantial number" of applications. Its four-year programme will have a focus on corporate and commercial matters, with subjects including corporate finance and accounting. A third of its curriculum will be devoted to non-law subjects, and knowledge will be imparted in small group seminars.[5]
  • 8 March – It is announced in Parliament that a new law, tentatively called the Mental Capacity Act, will be introduced to enable people to appoint guardians who can manage their affairs should they lose their mental faculties later in life. The proposed Act will also enable parents of children with severe intellectual impairment to appoint persons to look after their children's welfare. The draft Bill is expected to be ready by May and will be followed by a public consultation exercise. In considering the new law, Singapore is following the lead of countries such as Germany, Hong Kong and the UK.[10]
  • 12 March – Figures and reports from the Disciplinary Committee Secretariat show that complaints against lawyers resulted in 28 investigations being completed in 2006, more than twice the number in 2005. Six were acquitted, nine were reprimanded or fined, and 14 were referred to a Court of Three Judges – the highest level of disciplinary action. Some of the investigations involved more than one lawyer in each case. In the cases that went before three-judge hearings from 2006 till now, eight lawyers were suspended from legal practice for periods ranging from six months to two years. One lawyer was ordered to pay legal costs of S$65,000 for the proceedings, believed to be the highest amount in recent times. The most common complaints involved lawyers who offered commissions for conveyancing business, as well as others who failed to advise their clients properly on property matters. The lawyers involved in the investigations completed last year had between six and 43 years of experience. To address the problem, the Singapore Academy of Law intends to publish a book on professional ethics in the second quarter of 2007, to summarize core principles and serve as a guide to the ethical issues that lawyers encounter in professional practice. Also, from this year the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law is offering a new optional module entitled "Conflicts and Obligations in Legal Ethics" for undergraduates, which deals with a lawyer's ethical requirements, how they impact their work, and how to handle difficulties raised by ethical obligations.[11]