This work is the second stage of a project undertaken by the Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI) to encourage the harmonisation of the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the ten ASEAN Member States as well as Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea. The first stage of the project was to produce a concise summary of the relevant law by legal experts from each of these fifteen countries. The second stage is an ambitious attempt to find commonality between these diverse jurisdictions and create thirteen core principles, which in the words of the Project Leader, Professor Adeline Chong, ‘ will provide fodder for the harmonisation of the foreign judgment rules in Asia. ’ Professor Chong stresses that these principles do not set out a model law. Nevertheless, ‘ by analysing how the countries in Asia approach specific issues and teasing out the similarities and differences between the various laws, it is hoped that they will provide a useful resource for judges, practitioners, legislators and policymakers in Asia. ’ To find commonality is no easy task, given that some of the countries in the project are common law jurisdictions, others civil and some have hybrid systems while Indonesia and Thailand do not recognise or enforce any foreign judgments. The approach adopted by the book (very much like the classic common law work Dicey, Morris & Collins on the Conflict of Laws ) is that, at the start of each section, a principle is stated and then a commentary on the principle follows. The commentary details to what degree each country within the project complies with the principle, and ends with a ‘ suggested way forward ’ which seeks to justify why the principle should form part of Asian law. To a common law lawyer, like this reviewer, there is nothing particularly controversial about ele-ven of these principles: Principle 1 (restriction on enforcement to commercial matters); Principle 2 (international jurisdiction – the need for presence or submission); Principle 3 (finality); Principle 4 (no review of the
{"title":"Asian Priniciples For The Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments by Adeline Chong et al. Singapore: Asian Business Law Institute, 2020. 187 pp. Hardcover: S$165.00.","authors":"A. Gibb","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.15","url":null,"abstract":"This work is the second stage of a project undertaken by the Asian Business Law Institute (ABLI) to encourage the harmonisation of the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the ten ASEAN Member States as well as Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea. The first stage of the project was to produce a concise summary of the relevant law by legal experts from each of these fifteen countries. The second stage is an ambitious attempt to find commonality between these diverse jurisdictions and create thirteen core principles, which in the words of the Project Leader, Professor Adeline Chong, ‘ will provide fodder for the harmonisation of the foreign judgment rules in Asia. ’ Professor Chong stresses that these principles do not set out a model law. Nevertheless, ‘ by analysing how the countries in Asia approach specific issues and teasing out the similarities and differences between the various laws, it is hoped that they will provide a useful resource for judges, practitioners, legislators and policymakers in Asia. ’ To find commonality is no easy task, given that some of the countries in the project are common law jurisdictions, others civil and some have hybrid systems while Indonesia and Thailand do not recognise or enforce any foreign judgments. The approach adopted by the book (very much like the classic common law work Dicey, Morris & Collins on the Conflict of Laws ) is that, at the start of each section, a principle is stated and then a commentary on the principle follows. The commentary details to what degree each country within the project complies with the principle, and ends with a ‘ suggested way forward ’ which seeks to justify why the principle should form part of Asian law. To a common law lawyer, like this reviewer, there is nothing particularly controversial about ele-ven of these principles: Principle 1 (restriction on enforcement to commercial matters); Principle 2 (international jurisdiction – the need for presence or submission); Principle 3 (finality); Principle 4 (no review of the","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"372 - 373"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43827940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In the era of sentencing guidelines, the punishment for traffickers is primarily based on the offenders’ culpability and the drug weight. Existing literature tend to focus on the issue of proportionality as it relates to the roles and culpability of offenders. However, little attention has been drawn to the quantity of drugs. England and Wales have incorporated offender roles into their sentencing guidelines, while Hong Kong uses drug tariffs strictly based on drug weight to calculate the starting point of a sentence. Using a novel equation called ‘the arithmetic starting point of sentence’, this study examines the starting sentence based on each gram of drugs by undertaking a comparative analysis of the respective jurisdictions. The results show that both jurisdictions have adopted sentencing guidelines that exhibit a logarithmic curve. This implies that the scale used to measure the quantity of drugs is disproportionate, penalising smaller quantities more harshly than larger quantities.
{"title":"Testing the Drugs’ Sentencing Guidelines: A Comparison between England and Wales and Hong Kong","authors":"K. Cheng, S. Ri, N. Pushkarna","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.11","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the era of sentencing guidelines, the punishment for traffickers is primarily based on the offenders’ culpability and the drug weight. Existing literature tend to focus on the issue of proportionality as it relates to the roles and culpability of offenders. However, little attention has been drawn to the quantity of drugs. England and Wales have incorporated offender roles into their sentencing guidelines, while Hong Kong uses drug tariffs strictly based on drug weight to calculate the starting point of a sentence. Using a novel equation called ‘the arithmetic starting point of sentence’, this study examines the starting sentence based on each gram of drugs by undertaking a comparative analysis of the respective jurisdictions. The results show that both jurisdictions have adopted sentencing guidelines that exhibit a logarithmic curve. This implies that the scale used to measure the quantity of drugs is disproportionate, penalising smaller quantities more harshly than larger quantities.","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"167 - 190"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42517477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Legal academics were once thought to be parasitic on the work of judges, so much so that citing academic work was said to weaken a judgment's authority. Recent times have however seen prominent academics appointed to the highest courts, and judicial engagement with academic materials appears to have increased. In this light, this article empirically studies academic citation practices in the Singapore High Court. Using a dataset of 2,772 first-instance High Court judgments, we show that citation counts have indeed increased over time. This increase was distributed across most legal areas, and was not limited to, though more pronounced in, judgments authored by judges with post-graduate law degrees. Books, not journal articles, have consistently accounted for the bulk of the court's citations. The study sheds new statistical light on the evolving relationship between judges and academics, particularly in the context of an Asian, first-instance court.
{"title":"How and Why Do Judges Cite Academics? Evidence from the Singapore High Court","authors":"Jerrold Soh, Yihan Goh","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.10","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Legal academics were once thought to be parasitic on the work of judges, so much so that citing academic work was said to weaken a judgment's authority. Recent times have however seen prominent academics appointed to the highest courts, and judicial engagement with academic materials appears to have increased. In this light, this article empirically studies academic citation practices in the Singapore High Court. Using a dataset of 2,772 first-instance High Court judgments, we show that citation counts have indeed increased over time. This increase was distributed across most legal areas, and was not limited to, though more pronounced in, judgments authored by judges with post-graduate law degrees. Books, not journal articles, have consistently accounted for the bulk of the court's citations. The study sheds new statistical light on the evolving relationship between judges and academics, particularly in the context of an Asian, first-instance court.","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"134 - 166"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41845047","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In her recent book, Constitutional Statecraft in Asian Courts, Yvonne Tew develops an ambitious argument for empowering Malaysian judges to promote constitutional democracy. Her arguments rely on the idea of an unamendable constitutional ‘basic structure’ or ‘meta-Constitution’ expressive of that ideal. I argue that her proposals are normatively inadequate to this task because Tew relies on resources in constitutional theory traceable to the conservative German thinker Carl Schmitt, whose views about constitutional legitimacy and limits to constitutional amendment form part of an authoritarian political logic designed to subvert constitutional democracy that subordinates legality to power politics. I then argue that Tew's proposals, if applied to Malaysia, risk feeding into elements of Schmittian authoritarian logic that plausibly underwrite Malaysia's ethnocratic context, and conjecture (through case-analysis) that authoritarian judges could easily reconfigure her proposals to legitimate ethno-authoritarian rule. Conversely, conscientious judges who defend constitutional democracy would adopt a non-Schmittian approach that emphasises the normative priority of legality as a constraint on political power to counter ethno-authoritarian rule. Consequently, despite Tew's aspiration to equip judges with tools to defend constitutional democracy, the tools she provides threaten to undermine this aspiration such that her proposals may be characterised as a naïve Schmittian misappropriation.
{"title":"Constitutional Statecraft in Malaysian Courts: A Naive ‘Schmittian’ Misappropriation","authors":"R. Balasubramaniam","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.9","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In her recent book, Constitutional Statecraft in Asian Courts, Yvonne Tew develops an ambitious argument for empowering Malaysian judges to promote constitutional democracy. Her arguments rely on the idea of an unamendable constitutional ‘basic structure’ or ‘meta-Constitution’ expressive of that ideal. I argue that her proposals are normatively inadequate to this task because Tew relies on resources in constitutional theory traceable to the conservative German thinker Carl Schmitt, whose views about constitutional legitimacy and limits to constitutional amendment form part of an authoritarian political logic designed to subvert constitutional democracy that subordinates legality to power politics. I then argue that Tew's proposals, if applied to Malaysia, risk feeding into elements of Schmittian authoritarian logic that plausibly underwrite Malaysia's ethnocratic context, and conjecture (through case-analysis) that authoritarian judges could easily reconfigure her proposals to legitimate ethno-authoritarian rule. Conversely, conscientious judges who defend constitutional democracy would adopt a non-Schmittian approach that emphasises the normative priority of legality as a constraint on political power to counter ethno-authoritarian rule. Consequently, despite Tew's aspiration to equip judges with tools to defend constitutional democracy, the tools she provides threaten to undermine this aspiration such that her proposals may be characterised as a naïve Schmittian misappropriation.","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"106 - 133"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41684113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract When reading the competition law statutes of countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam or, to a lesser extent, the Philippines, it quickly becomes clear to anyone who has studied EU competition law in any detail that these statutes have been inspired by or, indeed, partly been copied verbatim from EU competition law. Yet, do these transplants actually work the same way in the receiving countries? Is that even possible at all? And how are we to understand any deliberate changes which have been made to the transplants? The article aims to develop a method for investigating EU competition law transplants in non-EU countries, focusing especially on ASEAN, based on inter-disciplinary insight into the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts in the receiving countries. For this, the article engages with the theoretical underpinnings of legal transplants and comparative law. It has become increasingly well-recognised in critical comparative legal research that it is essential to go beyond the legal perspective, but this is still rare in competition law comparison. A sound method taking into consideration legal and non-legal contexts will help us to understand more fully the role of competition law in those non-EU countries that have opted to transplant the EU model.
{"title":"Transplanting EU competition law in ASEAN: Towards a context informed method of investigation","authors":"Andrea Gideon","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.4","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When reading the competition law statutes of countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam or, to a lesser extent, the Philippines, it quickly becomes clear to anyone who has studied EU competition law in any detail that these statutes have been inspired by or, indeed, partly been copied verbatim from EU competition law. Yet, do these transplants actually work the same way in the receiving countries? Is that even possible at all? And how are we to understand any deliberate changes which have been made to the transplants? The article aims to develop a method for investigating EU competition law transplants in non-EU countries, focusing especially on ASEAN, based on inter-disciplinary insight into the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts in the receiving countries. For this, the article engages with the theoretical underpinnings of legal transplants and comparative law. It has become increasingly well-recognised in critical comparative legal research that it is essential to go beyond the legal perspective, but this is still rare in competition law comparison. A sound method taking into consideration legal and non-legal contexts will help us to understand more fully the role of competition law in those non-EU countries that have opted to transplant the EU model.","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45283650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Indonesia enacted a controversial ‘Omnibus Law’ on Job Creation in late 2020, and its implementing regulations followed in February 2021. This Law, and particularly the labour cluster of amendments within it, has been linked to Indonesia's recent ‘democratic decline’ or ‘illiberal turn’. Many of the amendments reduce worker protections with the aim of producing a more flexible labour market. While it is these obvious amendments in favour of employers’ interests that have attracted the most attention, a deeper analysis of the changes introduced by this Law reveals additional important factors at play. There has been a significant repositioning of labour regulations within Indonesia's hierarchy of legal instruments, as well as important responses to Constitutional Court judicial review cases. Overall, this deeper legal analysis produces mixed evidence for democratic decline in Indonesia.
{"title":"Indonesia's Omnibus Law on Job Creation: Legal Hierarchy and Responses to Judicial Review in the Labour Cluster of Amendments","authors":"Petra Mahy","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.7","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Indonesia enacted a controversial ‘Omnibus Law’ on Job Creation in late 2020, and its implementing regulations followed in February 2021. This Law, and particularly the labour cluster of amendments within it, has been linked to Indonesia's recent ‘democratic decline’ or ‘illiberal turn’. Many of the amendments reduce worker protections with the aim of producing a more flexible labour market. While it is these obvious amendments in favour of employers’ interests that have attracted the most attention, a deeper analysis of the changes introduced by this Law reveals additional important factors at play. There has been a significant repositioning of labour regulations within Indonesia's hierarchy of legal instruments, as well as important responses to Constitutional Court judicial review cases. Overall, this deeper legal analysis produces mixed evidence for democratic decline in Indonesia.","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"51 - 75"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46241390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In 2016, China introduced an ‘Admission of Guilt and Acceptance of Punishment’ system (known as ‘plea leniency’) premised primarily on the ideal of punishing crime efficiently while advancing the protection of human rights. In this article, I challenge this official rationale by critically examining the legitimacy of plea leniency as a rights-based approach to crime. Drawing on procedural justice theory, I use extant research data and online criminal judgments from the courts in Shanghai to unravel manifold mismatches between the plea leniency process and a procedurally just decision-making process that respects individual rights. My contention is that the operational dynamics of plea leniency is weighed heavily towards efficacy with little regard for the fundamental norms of due process and fairness in which the procedural legitimacy of this new form of summary dispositions is grounded. By tying the expedition of criminal proceedings to guilty pleas, plea leniency represents a discursive continuity of China's broader criminal justice culture, and as such, it fails in operating on a more just, respectful, and communicative basis to accommodate defendants’ interests which stand at the core of its operation.
{"title":"Haste Makes Waste: Why China's New Plea Leniency System is Doomed to Fail","authors":"Enshen Li","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.8","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In 2016, China introduced an ‘Admission of Guilt and Acceptance of Punishment’ system (known as ‘plea leniency’) premised primarily on the ideal of punishing crime efficiently while advancing the protection of human rights. In this article, I challenge this official rationale by critically examining the legitimacy of plea leniency as a rights-based approach to crime. Drawing on procedural justice theory, I use extant research data and online criminal judgments from the courts in Shanghai to unravel manifold mismatches between the plea leniency process and a procedurally just decision-making process that respects individual rights. My contention is that the operational dynamics of plea leniency is weighed heavily towards efficacy with little regard for the fundamental norms of due process and fairness in which the procedural legitimacy of this new form of summary dispositions is grounded. By tying the expedition of criminal proceedings to guilty pleas, plea leniency represents a discursive continuity of China's broader criminal justice culture, and as such, it fails in operating on a more just, respectful, and communicative basis to accommodate defendants’ interests which stand at the core of its operation.","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"76 - 105"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45410253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The ‘multiple distinctive challenges’ that litigants in person (LiPs) ‘present to the legal system’ (p 12), will be an issue that will resonate with anyone interested in civil justice across the common law world. This concise volume, focusing on the issues from Singapore’s perspective, is a welcome and valuable addition to the literature. It draws on multiple data sources – official data, case law, interviews, and a survey – to explore ‘the challenges that a lack of representation poses to the wider justice process’ (p 12). While the issue at the centre of the book is framed as a ‘lack of representation’, the considered solutions offered in the final chapter include systemic changes to make the system more accessible to unrepresented litigants. Commendably, the book presents a nuanced understanding of LiPs, noting the tendency of many legal actors to characterise LiPs as ‘“difficult”, “trouble-making”, “obsessive”, and even “vexatious”’ (p 17). The book contains a comprehensive review of the position of LiPs in four common law jurisdictions – the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States – and compares these to the situation in Singapore (Chapter 2). In conducting this review, the authors make the astute observation that discussion about LiPs has been influenced by particular foci in these jurisdictions, for example in the United Kingdom the changes to the legal aid system and in the United States, the concern with the legal needs of low-income Americans (p 12). This discussion might have been enriched by including Canada, which has detailed research on LiPs and relevant case law. For example, in Pintea v Johns, the Canadian Supreme Court endorsed the ‘Statement of Principles on Self-Represented Litigants and Accused Persons’, a document that provides guidance to judges, court administrators, and lawyers, ‘to ensure that self-represented persons are provided with fair access and equal treatment by the court’. Nevertheless, it will be very useful to anyone seeking a quality comparative survey of the issues. The authors go beyond policy and academic papers in their review; also analysing annual reports and other official materials to estimate numbers of LiPs in various Singapore jurisdictions (Chapter 2). This is useful data, which is interpreted with the appropriate caution that such records require, and provides at least a partial picture of LiP activity in Singapore courts. Hopefully such data will motivate the relevant bodies to heed the authors’ call for ‘coordinated and sustained data collection’ to
诉讼当事人亲自(lip)“向法律体系提出的多重独特挑战”(第12页)，将是一个问题，将与任何对普通法世界的民事司法感兴趣的人产生共鸣。这本简明的书，从新加坡的角度关注问题，是对文献的一个受欢迎和有价值的补充。它利用多种数据来源——官方数据、判例法、访谈和调查——来探索“缺乏代表对更广泛的司法程序构成的挑战”(第12页)。虽然本书的中心问题是“缺乏代表”，但在最后一章中提供的考虑解决方案包括系统性变革，使该系统更容易被无代表的诉讼当事人所接受。值得称赞的是，这本书对lip有细致入微的理解，注意到许多法律从业者倾向于将lip描述为“难以相处”、“制造麻烦”、“有强迫症”，甚至“无理”(第17页)。本书全面回顾了四个普通法司法管辖区(英国、澳大利亚、新西兰和美国)的法律援助制度的地位，并将其与新加坡的情况进行了比较(第2章)。在进行这一回顾时，作者敏锐地观察到，关于法律援助制度的讨论受到这些司法管辖区的特定焦点的影响，例如，在英国，法律援助制度的变化，而在美国，关注低收入美国人的法律需要(第12页)。如果把加拿大包括进来，这一讨论可能会更加丰富，因为加拿大对lip和相关判例法进行了详细的研究。例如，在Pintea v Johns案中，加拿大最高法院认可了“关于自我辩护诉讼人和被告的原则声明”，该文件为法官、法院管理人员和律师提供了指导，“以确保自我辩护的人获得公平的机会和平等的待遇”。然而，对于任何寻求对这些问题进行高质量比较调查的人来说，这将是非常有用的。作者在他们的评论中超越了政策和学术论文;还分析了年度报告和其他官方材料，以估计新加坡各个司法管辖区的LiP数量(第2章)。这是有用的数据，根据此类记录的要求，对其进行了适当的谨慎解释，并至少提供了新加坡法院LiP活动的部分情况。希望这些数据能够激励相关机构响应作者“协调和持续的数据收集”的呼吁
{"title":"Litigants in Person: Principles and Practice in Civil and Family Matters in Singapore by Jaclyn L Neo & Helena Whalen-Bridge Singapore: SAL Academy Publishing, 2021. 177 pp. Hardcover: S$64.20","authors":"Bridgette Toy-Cronin","doi":"10.1017/asjcl.2022.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/asjcl.2022.5","url":null,"abstract":"The ‘multiple distinctive challenges’ that litigants in person (LiPs) ‘present to the legal system’ (p 12), will be an issue that will resonate with anyone interested in civil justice across the common law world. This concise volume, focusing on the issues from Singapore’s perspective, is a welcome and valuable addition to the literature. It draws on multiple data sources – official data, case law, interviews, and a survey – to explore ‘the challenges that a lack of representation poses to the wider justice process’ (p 12). While the issue at the centre of the book is framed as a ‘lack of representation’, the considered solutions offered in the final chapter include systemic changes to make the system more accessible to unrepresented litigants. Commendably, the book presents a nuanced understanding of LiPs, noting the tendency of many legal actors to characterise LiPs as ‘“difficult”, “trouble-making”, “obsessive”, and even “vexatious”’ (p 17). The book contains a comprehensive review of the position of LiPs in four common law jurisdictions – the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States – and compares these to the situation in Singapore (Chapter 2). In conducting this review, the authors make the astute observation that discussion about LiPs has been influenced by particular foci in these jurisdictions, for example in the United Kingdom the changes to the legal aid system and in the United States, the concern with the legal needs of low-income Americans (p 12). This discussion might have been enriched by including Canada, which has detailed research on LiPs and relevant case law. For example, in Pintea v Johns, the Canadian Supreme Court endorsed the ‘Statement of Principles on Self-Represented Litigants and Accused Persons’, a document that provides guidance to judges, court administrators, and lawyers, ‘to ensure that self-represented persons are provided with fair access and equal treatment by the court’. Nevertheless, it will be very useful to anyone seeking a quality comparative survey of the issues. The authors go beyond policy and academic papers in their review; also analysing annual reports and other official materials to estimate numbers of LiPs in various Singapore jurisdictions (Chapter 2). This is useful data, which is interpreted with the appropriate caution that such records require, and provides at least a partial picture of LiP activity in Singapore courts. Hopefully such data will motivate the relevant bodies to heed the authors’ call for ‘coordinated and sustained data collection’ to","PeriodicalId":39405,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Law","volume":"17 1","pages":"191 - 193"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41397835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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