CALS Student-Researchers, Johan Ding and Alden Ng, have been awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Prize

The NUS Law Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS) would like to congratulate its student-researchers, Johan Ding ‘24 and Alden Ng ’24, for each being awarded the Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize (OURP). The OURP was first launched by the NUS Provost’s Office in AY 2006/07 as an annual university-wide competition to encourage research and to recognise the best undergraduate researchers in NUS.

As part of the inaugural NUS Law Centre for Asian Legal Studies – Thammasat University Faculty of Law Peer Learning Initiative (CATPLI) Writing Project, which will be launched later this year as a special volume in collaboration with the Singapore Law Review, Johan and Alden had each undertaken independent research pertaining to Singapore’s small claims tribunal processes and South Korean constitutional law respectively. The CATPLI Writing Project is supported by faculty members of both NUS Law, and those from Thammasat University Faculty of Law. Johan’s project was supervised by both Associate Professor Helena Whalen-Bridge (CALS Academic Fellow) and Toh Ding Jun (CALS Researcher), while Alden’s project was supervised by Ding Jun.

Titled ‘Singapore’s Informal Justice Experience: Evaluating the Practice of the Small Claims Tribunals’, Johan’s fieldwork at the State Courts demonstrated that despite being statutorily permitted to dispense “informal justice” substantively and procedurally, the Small Claims Tribunals do not, in fact, deviate significantly from the adversarial procedure or rules-based adjudication seen in ordinary commercial litigation. Johan’s paper argues that this lack of deviation promotes the interests of judicial neutrality and principled decision-making. Simultaneously, the paper argues that interests relating to access to justice (e.g. expeditious dispute resolution and navigability of court processes by laypersons) are principally served through the tribunals’ settlement facilitation and case management functions.

Alden’s paper, titled ‘Playing with Temporality: South Korea’s Flawed Deployment of Prospective Overruling at Constitutional Law’, examines South Korean primary material on the default prospective effect of a decision of unconstitutionality in South Korea. In this regard, he engages in a comparative doctrinal analysis of civil and common law views on prospective overruling. Tracing the general civil law trend for prospective effect to the jurisprudential concern for legal stability, Alden illustrates how South Korea’s legislation implementing said prospective effect paradoxically does the very opposite. Finding the case law band-aid over the issue unsatisfactory, he proposes certain reforms in his paper and speculates on the paradox’s cause.

Both papers showcase the exciting and fascinating research undertaken by our student-researchers and, for each winning the OURP, CALS would like to take this opportunity to heartily congratulate Johan and Alden for their significant achievements!