Contextualising Debates about Legal and Judicial Reform in Asia: Case Studies of Recent Trends in Singapore and India

Prof. Michael Ewing-Chow and
Prof. Arun Kumar Thiruvengadam
Professor of Law
National University of Singapore

The concept note for this conference encourages contributors to focus on “the law and development experience in Asia” and seeks papers analyzing theoretical and/or practical experiences of developing and/or developed nations in Asia. Our paper attempts to cater to this requirement by focusing on a recent World Bank publication that describes and analyses a series of legal and judicial reforms undertaken by the Singaporean judiciary over a 15 year span between 1992 and 2007. The World Bank publication, authored by Waleed Haider Malik, adopts a “management-oriented” perspective to conclude that the reform process in Singapore has made its court system “more efficient” and responsive to user needs, and that the process has “much to offer other nations looking to improve their court systems.” A fundamental premise of the publication appears to be that the Singapore legal system is a good model to follow because it is one of the most efficient in the world.

We will attempt to critically analyse the Malik report from two perspectives: i) whether its conclusions can be justified by adopting an internal perspective from Singapore (i.e. whether the results of the reforms described are as much of an unqualified good as he asserts); and ii) whether Malik is correct in asserting that the Singapore experience can be applied in other contexts (using India as an example of a jurisdiction where his “management-oriented” perspective can be implemented). The first part of our paper will describe and critically analyse Malik’s report primarily from a perspective that is internal to Singapore. In the second part, we will provide a brief backdrop to the Indian context, and then assess the applicability of Malik’s views to contemporary debates about legal and judicial reform in India.

In developing our critique, we will rely on contemporary debates among law and development scholars about legal and judicial reform, and about ways to faithfully implement the ideal of the rule of law in different jurisdictions. Focusing on such debates in these two jurisdictions in Asia – whose legal systems share common origins but have developed very differently since decolonization - may cast some light on the larger, “universal” issues from the vantage point of a more specific context.