Description

About the Event

This address will trace the evolution of the rule of law in Singapore and how our understanding of it has adapted to meet the changing demands placed on our justice system. In our early years, formal and procedural conceptions of the rule of law, introduced through the Second Charter of Justice and more fully developed after Independence, were essential to our survival. It examines how principles such as accountability, equality before the law, legal certainty and predictability, and the assurance of an independent and impartial judiciary, enabled Singapore to function as a credible commercial entrepôt while confronting serious threats to national stability.

As Singapore has matured, however, and as we confront new global realities – including deepening globalisation, growing geopolitical and economic fragmentation, and the transformative impact of artificial intelligence – our conception of the rule of law needs to continue to evolve. It should expand beyond form and procedure to embrace more substantive and enlightened dimensions, including coherence across legal systems and meaningful access to justice. This address considers how Singapore has sought to give expression to these broader ideals through thought leadership in areas such as the pursuit of therapeutic justice in family disputes, and through sustained co-operation with like-minded partners in ASEAN and beyond the region.

About the Speaker

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) from the National University of Singapore in 1986 and a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1991. He was admitted as an advocate and solicitor in Singapore in 1987, and as an attorney and counsellor-at-law in New York in 1992. After he was called to the Bar in Singapore, he practised with major local and international law firms, primarily as an advocate, in the fields of commercial litigation and arbitration, construction law and insolvency law. From 2006 to 2007, he served as a Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2008. In 2010, he was appointed the 6th Attorney-General of Singapore, a post he relinquished in 2012 shortly before his appointment as a Judge of Appeal. He was appointed to the Presidential Council for Minority Rights upon his appointment as Attorney-General in 2010 and was later appointed as its Chairman in 2012, upon his appointment as Chief Justice.

Between 2012 and 2020, Chief Justice Menon served on the Governing Board of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, and he also served as a member of the International Chamber of Commerce Governing Body for Dispute Resolution Services from 2021 to March 2024. He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute, an Honorary Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in England and the President of the Singapore Academy of Law. Chief Justice Menon was conferred the Honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Western Australia in 2022 for his services to the law and by the National University of Singapore in 2024 for his outstanding service to the practice and adjudication of law. In 2024, he was also awarded the White & Case Distinguished Jessup Alumni Award.