% Copyright (C) 1994, Andrew J Harding. All rights reserved. \documentstyle[lexitex,11pt]{article} \begin{document} \bibliographystyle{lexibib} \bibliography{spore} \title{Law as Social Engineering in Singapore: `Smart' Laws in the Intelligent Island} \author{Andrew Harding\thanks{Senior Lecturer School of Oriental and African Studies, London University; presented in the Asian studies seminar series State and Law in Asia, Asian Studies Centre, St Anthony's College, Oxford, 19 October 1993.}} \maketitle \begin{abstract} The development of Singapore law has been an outcome of its peculiar history, geography and politics. The ideology of social discipline has profoundly affected this development: law has been seen primarily as an instrument of social engineering rather than as the expression of a particular balance of principles defined politically or culturally and regarded as the embodiment of justice. The development of the region's legal systems along the lines of Singapore's is unlikely because of the growth of democracy movements. \end{abstract} \section{Introduction} Ever since Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819 alighted at the point on the Singapore River where his statue now gazes benevolently down on the backs of public buildings on the waterfront, Singapore has been a byword for firm government. In his brief sojourns in Singapore Raffles laid down many of the principles by which Singapore is now governed: an economically ambitious policy of free trade, in particular a free port;\footnote{ It is interesting to note that the BBC's excellent documentary \lexicite{intelligent-island}, focused on the operation of the port of Singapore as the most obvious example of the ``on-line'' society. Whatever else is argued in this paper, it may well be that in the field of information technology the Asia-Pacific region's future will resemble Singapore's present.} the recruitment of Singapore's many ethnic communities behind Government policies; law and order; cleanliness; purposeful administration; centralization of political power. Raffles was motivated not only by utilitarianism, but also by humanitarianism. This latter aspect of his policy has also been fulfilled, though only partially. Raffles would no doubt be pleased with Singapore's prosperity and environment, the expansion and efficacy of its education, health care, public services and social institutions, and its prominence in international counsels. He would, I think, be disappointed that Singapore has not become the cultural focal point of maritime South East Asia,\footnote{ Or the Malay world, as he would have called it.} and that it has moved away from those principles of the enlightenment which inspired its creator. I mention Raffles rather than Lee Kuan Yew in this introduction because it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Singapore's history, policy and legal system have been determined to a a large extent by geopolitics. It was chosen by Raffles because of its natural harbour, situated so as to serve India and Europe in the West, China in the East, and South East Asia all around it. It was from the beginning a commercial colony rather than a strategic necessity. The Singapore of what we might call ``the Lee Kuan Yew era'' (1959 to the present)\footnote{ In 1990 Lee stepped down as Prime Minister after 29 years, but since then, under the leadership of Goh Chok Tong as Prime Minister, Singapore clearly stills follows all the principle points of Lee's policy, even if some slight differences in style of Government can be detected. As Senior Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Lee still clearly exercises great influence, and his position in no way corresponds to that of Margaret Thatcher over a similar period. A common joke in Singapore is that Goh is now ``the Prime Minister in the Senior Minister's Department''. Lee himself has described his position as that of a goalkeeper rather than a centre forward. Recently Lee has finally relinquished the important post of Secretary-General of the People's Action Party [PAP] to Goh.} has been to a large extent preordained by an accident of history which resulted in the failure of its federation within Malaysia (1963-5). Much of what follows in this paper would have been true even if federation had succeeded, but the casting out of Singapore into the unpredictable political environment of 1960s South East Asia has resulted in the recognition of its leaders that Singapore is a potentially vulnerable city-state with a racial make-up which differs greatly from all the surrounding countries. Indeed it was this racial difference, as well as economic and political factors, which hastened Singapore's departure from Malaysia in 1965. The ideology put forward by Lee and other leaders since then has been that Singapore has only the intelligence and discipline of its workforce, and no hinterland of rice-padi and rich natural resources to fall back on, as Malaysia, China and Indonesia have. Its only route to survival, let alone economic propserity, has therefore been to take advantage of its position and infrastructure to provide goods and services to others, and to be a prime location for multi-national corporations. It is too small and vulnerable to withstand the shock-waves of a genuinely open society, and must maintain a rigid policy of social discipline and clearly defined, forcefully implemented, social objectives. This siege mentality is reinforced by, for example, the continuation of national service and reservist training, even though there is no military threat to Singapore. Attempts have also been made to enlist confucianism as a guiding philosophy, but this has had limited success. The ideology of social discipline has profoundly affected the development of law in Singapore. Law has been seen primarily as an instrument of social engineering rather than as the expression of a particular balance of principles defined politically or culturally and regarded as the embodiment of justice. This is a proposition which would probably find few dissenters, but what I think is interesting is to speculate on the nature and extent of this analysis, and to see to what extent it represents a model for other societies to follow. Is law as social engineering in Singapore purely an outcome of its situation, or is it indeed a glimpse of the legal future of the 21st century, not just perhaps in Asia, but over the rest of the planet? To this question I will return. \section{Legal Development in Singapore: Common Law and Statute Law} After the establishment of Raffles' colony, commerce brought with it Chinese, Indian and other immigrants from SE Asia and beyond. Commerce brings not only new ideas and values, carried by people freed from the traditional constraints of their own cultures,\footnote{ This was written as referring to the Chinese, but applies in some ways to the British colonialists too, who were constantly at odds with their overlords.} but also a motive for legal development: a degree of social stability and law and order is required; guarantees of private property and the honouring of promises; the legitimation and bolstering of institutions. The increase in population too, which in Singapore's case was an essential ingredient of prosperity, requires all these things. Imperial policy required the introduction of the common law, achieved formally by Charter in 1826,\footnote{\lexicite{bartholomew-englaw}.} and then by the progressive development of legal institutions---courts, judges, lawyers, local legislation, police, and eventually a bureaucracy, taxation, elections to a representative legislature, constitutional government, and political independence.\footnote{\lexicite{tan-short}.} The most notable feature of Singapore's legal development during the Lee Kuan Yew era has been the growth of statute law. Of course this is probably true of every country in the world, but in Singapore it has taken a particular form. Statutes have on the whole conferred administrative powers going far beyond what is regarded in most common-law countries as appropriate or necessary, and to the extent that Singapore has developed an indigenous legal system with its own peculiar features, these features are almost exclusively uncommon in the extent to which they regulate social behaviour. The legal system has become, in short, a regulatory system. In this one can contrast the emerging legal systems of other developing countries,\footnote{Singapore is of course no longer properly described as a developing country, and I am speaking historically here.} which, although occasionally embodying laws comparable with Singapore's, have been essentially pluralistic in nature, and attempt to establish a balance of interests, assuming a diverse rather than a monolithic society. It is this divergence of statute law from the standard model one generally finds in common-law countries which marks the autochthony of Singapore's legal system. The common law, as is forcefully argued by Andrew Phang in a recent and very impressive monograph,\footnote{ \lexicite{phang-development}.} has been characterized by its lack of development in Singapore. Taking the example of contract law, Phang shows how the judges failed to take a Singaporean view of the subject, simply applying English precedents mechanically, even where the needs of society demanded a different result.\footnote{\lexicite{phang-development}, chapter 3.} He refers to the ``emaciation of custom'' and the lack of development of alternative forms of dispute resolution. Much the same can be said of tort law and many other areas of Singapore law. The common law is characterized by its failure to achieve autochthony,\footnote{ This is not of course true of most other states which have received the common law, even those in the developing areas of Africa and Asia. These states have made the common law their own, and local precedents are argued alongside English and other cases. An interesting example of the lack of development of common law was the insistance on the rule against perpetuities, which directly contradicted Chinese customary law in preventing the tying up of property for ancestor worship. This approach was typical of the colonial judges, but has been continued by the Singaporean judiciary. See, further, \lexicite{phang-development}+{55, n.~8}.} and, I would argue because of this, there is, in parallel, an atrophy of judicial power.\footnote{Phang goes on to discuss criminal law, family law, labour law, and public housing law, finding that the innovative legislation in these areas has been successfully based on Singapore's particular social and economic circumstances.} On this basis I want to take a brief look, by way of example, at some particular areas of public law in Singapore by way of amplification of the thesis of this paper. \section{Constitutional Development} Singapore inherited a Westminster-style Constitution from its colonial past. After independence in 1965 a new Constitution was promised, but in fact Singapore's constitutional development has proceeded by a series of amendments over the span of the Lee Kuan Yew era. Far from failing, like the common law, to achieve autochthony, Singapore's constitutional development has seen a series of experiments, and has probably now finally worn into its shoes with the election in 1993 of Singapore's first elected President, Ong Teng Cheong, under constitutional amendments passed in 1991.\footnote{See \lexicite{m-const-amend-1991}, and a note on this by Kevin Tan at \lexicite{tan-constamend-note}.} Developments have centred around three issues, which are linked: race, opposition, and PAP succession. The objectives have been to recruit the support of the non-Chinese communities while suppressing communalism; to provide avenues for the expression of views opposed to those of the Government without undermining the dominant-party system; and to ensure that the main tenets of Lee Kuan Yew's policy will be continued by his successors, and not be replaced by ``welfarism'', which is regarded as the antithesis of PAP ideology, now that communism is no longer seen as a threat to Singapore. \subsection{Race} The racial tensions and riots of the 1950s and early 1960s made race an important issue after independence. A Constitutional Commission under the Chief Justice, reporting in 1966,\footnote{ \lexicite{m-const-commn-rept}.} was asked to explore ways of securing the confidence of the non-Chinese communities in their future as Singaporeans. The result was the Presidential Council for Minority Rights, set up in 1970,\footnote{ See \lexicite{constamend-n19}.} whose function was to scrutinize legislation to see if it discriminated against any racial or religious community. The experiment, promising in its original conception, foundered because the Government insisted that members of political parties be allowed to sit on the Council; the result was that the Council was packed with senior members and former senior members of the Government, including Lee himself as Chairman. Naturally the Council has never submitted an adverse report on any legislation; it quickly became an irrelevance.\footnote{ See \lexicite{harding-const-proc}.} The eventual resolution of the problem of ethnic minorities was the creation of the Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) in 1988.\footnote{ \lexicite{s-constamend-n9}.} The Constitution now requires that certain constituencies, which supply one half of the total number of MPs, be represented by a team of three MPs elected as a ``slate'' by the voters in three former constituencies now grouped together; one member of each slate must be a member of an ethnic minority, ie usually a Singaporean of Malay/ Muslim or Indian (South Asian) descent. Thus the voters may choose between a PAP slate and an opposition slate, but are bound to elect at least one non-Chinese MP, whichever way they vote. The ostensible objective of the reform was to ensure that ethnic minorities were represented in Parliament. In fact the objectives were probably (i) to ensure that the PAP vote remained stable without resorting to the laying off of non-Chinese MPs, which would give the lie to the concept of a multi-racial Singapore;\footnote{ Non-Chinese PAP MPs generally garnered a smaller proportion of the vote than their Chinese counterparts; this phenomenon was likely to be accentuated by (i) the increasingly mathematical distribution of races into new housing estates (itself an important aspect of social engineering); and (ii) the adoption of an increasingly ``Chinese'' policy by the PAP (Lee has been frank about the perceived lack of ``loyalty'' among the Malays, and has said that Singapore would do better if its population was racially monolithic like that of Japan).} and (ii) to make it more difficult for the opposition to secure an electoral victory in particular areas.\footnote{ It is far more difficult for the opposition parties to win in the equivalent of three adjoining constituencies than to pick off the odd constituency here and there.} This would suggest that voters had not returned non-Chinese MPs in the past. In fact both the PAP and the opposition had included non-Chinese MPs, and some disquiet was occasioned by this reform, as it implied that non-Chinese candidates were unelectable. It is not insignificant that the visit of Israel's President to Singapore in 1986, which provoked an outraged response from Indonesia and Malaysia, was perceived to have provided evidence of disloyalty among Singapore Malay servicemen.\footnote{ \lexicite{harding-const-proc}.} \subsection{Opposition} The Singapore Government has always taken the question of opposition seriously, even though it ruled in a one-party Parliament from 1965 to 1980, and since then has been troubled by only one, then two, then four opposition members in a 81-member chamber. The reason for this is that, unlike most other countries, Singapore, as a city-state, has more or less identical constituencies;\footnote{ Indeed it is part of PAP policy that this should be so.} it is thus possible for almost total PAP domination of Parliament to be suddenly reversed (following perhaps some serious economic setback), into almost total defeat. Proportional representaiton was expressly rejected in 1966.\footnote{ See, further, \lexicite{tan-parliament}.} One solution, the creation of a one-party state, is closed off. Although the PAP has defined itself as a national movement (1983), it was forced by adverse reaction to concede that this was not a step towards elevation of the PAP to the ``leading role'' given to communist parties in pre-1989 Europe. A severe reduction in the PAP vote at the ensuing election (1984) emphasized that Singapore, with a fairly solid 30--40\% opposition vote,\footnote{ The PAP share of the vote has dwindled from around 80\% in the late 1960s to 63\% in 1991 (voting is compulsory in Singapore). This perhaps shows that even Singapore's apparently total success in implementing its social engineering policy must be qualified by the need to defer to some extent to public opinion: see, further, \lexicite{phang-development}+{357ff}.} could not go down that road. As a result, the PAP has had to countenance the legitimacy of parliamentary opposition, and has sought instead to control it. The second option, the creation of Non-constituency MPs, designed to give a seat in Parliament to the most successful of the unelected opposition candidates, an apparently generous gesture, did not solve the problem, as it proved unpopular among the opposition parties, who prefer to win their seats rather than rely on government charity; and the provisions, applying only where there are less than two opposition MPs, have been overtaken by events. More recently, the creation of Nominated MPs (the third option), currently four in number, has met with greater success. These ``NMPs'' can participate in debates and vote.\footnote{ Except on money bills, supply bills, constitutional amendments, and confidence motions.} In case of PAP members deciding to cross the floor, an amendment introduced to deal with the politics of the tubulent 1960s ensures that they will not be able to do so without forfeiting their seats in Parliament.\footnote{ \lexicite{s-const}+{46(2)}.} Indeed PAP MPs who vote against the Government, or even abstain, are threatened with expulsion from the party. Any notion that legal development has embraced political opposition, is however, quickly contradicted by the constant legal harrassment of opposition MPs and the tough action taken against those who express opinions outside the arena of party politics. Not only the Singapore Law Society, but also NGOs and individual critics, have been targeted, especially in ``Operation Spectrum'' in 1987, in which 29 people, mainly Church workers and social activists, were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act, accused of having mounted a Marxist conspiracy to overthrow the Government.\footnote{ See \lexicite{ricjs-1987}.} This action outraged international opinion. At present, however, there are no ostensibly political detainees in Singapore. (c) Succession. The notion of an elected presidency to replace the nomination of the President by Parliament was conceived as a means of buttressing PAP rule, or at least the main tenets of PAP rule, and in particular as a means of preventing the dissipation of Singapore's substantial reserves. Although it was thought by most that this post was one into which Lee Kuan Yew would ease himself as he talked more and more of giving up executive power, in fact he remains as Senior Minister, and a former Deputy Prime Minister, Ong Teng Cheong, has been elected. His single opponent in the 1993 election was a little-known former civil servant. The main problem with such an elected President is of course how his powers relate to those of the Government itself. The structure created in Singapore is unique. The President is endowed not only with an electoral mandate, but with a formidable array of powers. He can withhold assent to certain Bills, veto Government loans, senior appointments and budgets of statutory boards and Government companies, and exercise various other powers. In short, by use of his purely negative powers, he can bring government grinding to a standstill at any time. Another problem with this reform, from the PAP point of view, was always that the presidential election might become a hustings for opposition candidates. This possibility has been preempted by imposing onerous requirements on presidential candidates, so that opposition politicans of the present echelon at least, are unable to stand. The rules are designed so that only members of the PAP-led political, administrative and business elite, can stand for election. Concluding this part of the paper, I would observe that law as social engineering in the field of constitutional law in Singapore has been largely a success, judged in terms of the objectives of reforms.\footnote{ It must be conceded that the theme of this paper raises some interesting theoretical issues about the nature of law which there has been no space to go into. I have deliberately adopted a positivist, Austinian approach, because that seems to me appropriate to the subject-matter. However, the ``social engineering'' approach to the analysis of legal systems does, in general, have to be handled with care. For some of the difficulties involved, see \lexicite{woodman-allotrev}, and Allott's reply, which follows, \lexicite{woodman-allottrev-reply}.} However, there is a kind of ``smartness'' about these laws which could lead to their removal at some time in the future. By ``smartness'', I mean that they appear to be programmed to produce not just in general, but rather too precisely, the result desired by their creators. This is a characteristic of many of Singapore's social engineering laws. They are the kind of laws which in the short term seek out their targets with relentless accuracy, negotiating every obstacle placed to thwart their efficacy; but in the long term they may be shorn of legitimacy by their very smartness---they are too smart for their own good. Perhaps they will disappear to the same part of the legal underworld which is reserved for Henry VIII's Star Chamber and the laws of the communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe. They do not provide a framework within which any future Government, even perhaps a PAP Government, would feel happy. \section{Administrative Law and the Administrative State}\footnote{See \lexicite{tynne-admin-state}.} Administrative law has seen burgeoning growth in developing countries over the last decade or so, and we are now getting used to examples of judicial independence and administrative-law reform cropping up in unlikely places, such as Indonesia and China. As a generalization about administrative law in Singapore, I would say that it has displayed great activity but quite remarkable lack of development. The courts have proved very unwilling to question administrative decisions in most areas: compulsory purchase, taxation, citizenship, immigration, control of the press, to name but a few.\footnote{ See, eg, \lexicite{re-dow-jones-asia}.} By way of contrast, they have been willing to intervene with the decisions of tribunals and disciplinary bodies where natural justice has not been observed. But the cases have been few and rather insignificant. As against the atrophy of judicial review and rule-of-law principles, administrative law in the narrower sense of regulatory statute law and meticulous enforcement has been developing rapidly. Hardly anything regarded by the Government as a mischief has been left without drastic regulation: adverse comment by NGOs, lawyers, church leaders or foreign journalists;\footnote{ Dealt with by the \lexicite{maint-of-relig-harmony-act}++{{8}\dash{19}}; \lexicite{internal-security-act}++{{8}\dash{19}}; \lexicite{newsp-printing-presses-amd-act}. For the last see \lexicite{batterman-sing-news}. } blocking of refuse chutes in apartment blocks; failure by the elite to perpetuate their genes; smoking in public; drug-trafficking; firearms; strikes; silent defendants; traffic jams in the city centre; crooked lawyers; traditional Malay villages (kampongs); official corruption; litter; chewing gum; and even unflushed public toilets.\footnote{ The tropical mosquito did not stand a chance, and has been dismissed by the irresistible advance of concrete modernity.} In many of these things the Singapore Government's actions have been amply and loudly justified. However, the smartness of the legal mechanisms used does not extend to preserving from collateral damage a large number of fundamental liberties. The statutes are not sufficiently smart to be programmed to distinguish between activities which are simply anti-social, and activities which may have a combination of desirable and undesirable aspects, or which may be wholly desirable. For example, restricting traffic in the centre at peak hours and the size of the car population in general seems sensible (to this observer at least), the infringement of personal liberty being marginal. The restrictions on criticism by the press, the churches, and NGOs, however, the sign of a healthy, democratic society, may (for all I know) marginally increase foreign investment, in the sense that Singapore will be perceived as a stable business environment, but the cost in terms of freedom of thought and expression, which any entrepreneurial society, let alone an open society, needs, is very great,\footnote{ Having taught at the National University for several years, I can vouch for the effect of discouragement of criticism on the mentality of a generation of Singaporeans.} unless one sees the population simply as an unintelligent resource, obedient automata, or ``digits'', to use the word often used by Lee himself and other PAP leaders. \subsection{Habeas corpus} The development of habeas corpus is a good example of the smartness of Singapore laws. In \footnote{% to use -t- here % later \lexicite{chngsuantzevminister}; for comment see Sin Boon Ann, `Judges and Executive Discretion---a Look at \lexicite{sin-boon-ann-chingvminister}; \lexicite{harding-singapore-prevent}. See also \lexicite{teo-soh-lung-v-min}; \lexicite{vincent-cheng-v-min}.} the Court of Appeal had to address what is probably the single most important question of administrative law: to what extent can the courts review the exercise of a subjectively-framed discretion (in this case to detain persons under the Internal Security Act as a threat to security or public order)? The Court commented adversely on a previous decision\footnote{ \lexicite{lee-mau-seng-v-min}.} denying the possibility of such review in security cases, and opined that the appropriate test was an objective one: the satisfaction of the President (acting on ministerial advice) had to be objectively reasonable, and it was not sufficient that the minister genuinely believed himself satisfied. However, the actual ratio of the case was that there was no actual evidence of presidential satisfaction. As a result, habeas corpus was granted and the detainees released. However, quite cynically, the Government arranged for their rearrest outside the detention centre on freshly prepared documentation which complied with the Court's ruling. If the court had framed the ratio of the case more generally, this would not have been possible. Legislation was then passed restoring the previous law, excluding the relevance of the case-law of any other jurisdiction,\footnote{ Cases from other Commonwealth countries, including Namibia and Zimbabwe were cited in Chng's case.} and denying an appeal to the Privy Council in security cases.\footnote{ \lexicite{intl-sec-amend-1989}. Consequential constitutional amendments were effected by the \lexicite{constamend-1989}.} The smartness of these laws goes even further. The appeal to the Privy Council could of course be abolished at any time, but has been retained because it encourages inward investment. However, the appeal requires agreement between the parties at any time before the case goes to the Singapore Court of Appeal, and is not allowed in security cases and cases involving professional discipline. Thus important commercial cases can still go the Privy Council and be decided by English judges in London, but cases involving the Government can be filtered out simply by the expedient of the Government refusing to agree to the appeal, thus allowing the case to be determined finally by the Singaporean judiciary. The competence and independence of the judges need not be in issue: if their decisions are not sufficiently smart, they can be reversed by exercise of legislative power, and if this requires a constitutional amendment, the Constitution also ensures that the two-thirds requisite majority is always forthcoming. \subsection{Eugenics} Another example which has become famous is the so-called `Graduate Mothers Scheme', under which university-educated mothers were allowed certain privileges with regard to choice of primary school for their children. The object of this scheme was to encourage the reproduction of the elite, which was reckoned to have fallen behind that of less qualified parents. This represented the reversal of a family-planning policy which had been rigorously enforced by a series of carrot-and-stick methods over a period of several years, the object of which was to prevent a population explosion in a small island with little land to spare. The scheme failed, as very few mothers took up their rights under the scheme.\footnote{ Tax incentives still remain, however.} After a vigorous defence of its purpose, the Government quietly dropped it the year following its introduction. What is interesting is that, although there was no constitutional challenge to the scheme, it was clearly perceived by a significant number of people as an illegitimate use of administrative power. Smartness, even in Singapore, has to extend to smartness about public opinion, even though the Singapore Government has proved adept at opinion-formation, and has sometimes succeeded in altering what Governments elsewhere might regard as an intractable environment of public opinion. The extremes to which Government goes to alter the environmental of opinion makes the nature of Singaporean laws highly instrumental and regulatory, when taken in conjunction with administrative measures and campaigns.\footnote{ Here I part company with Phang (eg, \lexicite{phang-development}++{{274}\dash{75}}), who regards these laws as proceeding from a favourable environment of public opinion. It is of course true that there are countervailing values such as ``westernization'', which have made the Singapore Government's task much more difficult; this development has resulted in a more materialistic society, but not in a greater emphasis on individual rights.} Laws on voluntary sterilization and abortion have also played a large part in the eugenics policy; these have had the effect of encouraging and liberalizing access to sterilization and abortion, thereby restricting population growth. To conclude this section, administrative law in Singapore has become law for administrators, not in my view a balance between the rights of citizens and the practical attainment of collective goals. There have been some very desirable consequences apart from the erosion of basic liberties: the virtual abolition of corruption, the provision of public housing and health care, and the reduction in environmental pollution, for example. None of these achievements can really be attributable to the denial of fundamental rights as such. Labour laws, on the other hand, have severely restricted rights of freedom of expression, assembly and association. \section{Conclusions} Let me now return to the question posed near the beginning of this paper: is law as social engineering in Singapore purely an outcome of its situation, or is it indeed a glimpse of the legal future of the 21st century in the Asia-Pacific region? To answer this question one must look more widely at events in East and South East Asia, and look carefully at the crystal ball (or at the yam sticks!). I hope to have shown how the development of Singapore law has been an outcome of its peculiar history, geography and politics. It would be an easily achieved answer to say that the case of Singapore affords us no general propositions about the future of state and law in the region or the world: it is a one-off case, albeit a remarkable one. This would be superficial reductionism. There is much in the Singapore experience which matches that of the premier-league players, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, and now also to some extent, in the first division, Malaysia, Thailand, China, and possibly also, looking to those aspirants for promotion, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. There is also no doubt that Lee Kuan Yew and other Singapore leaders see Singapore as a model for others to follow. This attitude is clearly shared by the leaders of some other countries. China has asked Singapore to create a Singapore clone at the city of Suzhou, near Shanghai. Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are cooperating with Singapore in the creation of special economic zones. Singaporean enterprises are investing in Vietnam and China; the latter has now become the largest recipient of Singaporean outward investment. There are of course important differences. These countries all have autochthonous legal systems dating from pre-industrial times. Some are still communist states. Although they display different degrees of openness in their political systems, all have large and growing democracy movements, spawned by educational advances, the rise of a prosperous and ambitious middle class, and the influence of NGO movements and other international movements. In December 1991 President Ramos of the Philippines politely rebuked Lee Kuan Yew for suggesting a Singapore-model approach in that country, reminding him that his country had already tried an authoritarian approach without much success.\footnote{ \lexicite{disc-democracy}.} It is a grave error, in my view, to think that state structures, political cultures and legal systems in Asia are similar or are converging. The question therefore arises whether these emerging NICs, as they are often called, or newly democratizing countries (NDCs, as I would prefer) can pursue a Singapore-style legal system. I think the answer to this is that although, to an extent, they have already done so, further development of the region's legal systems along the lines of Singapore's is unlikely. Although it has been affected by the tail-end of the region's democratic reform-oriented movement, snuffed out in the 1987 detentions, Singapore has only marginally conceded a point or two to this movement, putting forward an alternative ``style'' of PAP government under Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong since 1990.\footnote{ By representing the two most popular approaches to Government in Singapore, the PAP has cleverly, to some extent, succeeded in garnering the radical (``consensual Government'') vote as well as the conservative (``authoritarian Government'') vote.} The Singaporean educated middle-classes are a much more malleable entity than their equivalents elsewhere in the region, where important concessions have been made to ``multi-party democracy''. Even in Japan, the model which others in the region try to emulate, a coalition of non-LDP parties has taken power after two generations of LDP rule, an event unthinkable until recently. The effect of such events on Singapore has, so far, been slight. Even the present ``consensual style'' of Government has been able to embrace the dismissal of an opposition politician from his university post on the flimsiest of charges, and the hounding of Workers' Party leader JB Jeyaratnam resulted in some very adverse comments from the Privy Council.\footnote{ \lexicite{jeyaretnam-v-law-soc-sing}.} There is little sign that the new style is anything more than the old policy in new clothing. The necessities of Singapore's situation and the economic success achieved over the past two decades have enabled the PAP to immunize itself effectively against the democracy movement, albeit with some international disapproval. The size of Singapore has enabled a growth and effectiveness of the organs of state to an extent which even Japan, with all its social cohesion, has not been able to achieve. The severe anti-corruption laws protect the Government from the most telling charge which is brought against its peers elsewhere in the region, and which fuels the demand for legal reform. My conclusion is therefore that the monsoon-winds of change now sweeping the region cannot be broken by the wide espousal of a Singapore-type legal system. On the contrary, I think the question is whether Singapore itself will be swept along by these winds. My guess is that the legal system is now firmly entrenched, and that it will ride the storm. I envisage that much of the region will become, superficially, more like Singapore, but Singapore itself will have to make some concessions to the growing desire for rule-of-law institutions, or a rechtstaat, and the paraphernalia of constitutional democracy. \end{document}