Description

Abstract:

In an effort to stem Dutch dominance of the spice trade in archipelagic Southeast Asia, Sir Stamford Thomas Raffles  established a trading post or “factory” in Singapore in February 1819. However, the Treaty which Raffles signed with Sultan Hussain and Temenggong Abdul Rahman merely gave the British a limited right to establish a factory on the island, with an extremely limited territorial jurisdiction which ran from Tanjong Katong to Tanjong Malang. Within just a few years, the population of Singapore swelled from about 800 persons to 14,000 persons, Even so, the island remained strictly the domain of the Sultan and Temenggong, with the British East India Company occupying the port area as licensees. It was thus not till 1824 that the island was finally ceded to the British, who now had the legal wherewithal to establish a proper legal system on the island. This talk considers how justice was administered in Singapore in those early years, and how, even with the cession of Singapore, problems continued to plague the British in administering the island, right up till the time the British Crown granted the Straits Settlements a new Charter of Justice in 1826.

Speaker: Professor (Adjunct) Kevin YL Tan, National University of Singapore

Moderator: Dr. Ivan Lee, National University of Singapore

Register here: https://bit.ly/3LV9pFR (seminar will be presented via Zoom)

View the event flyer here.

This event is proudly organised under the Comparative Public Law Speaker Series, by the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS), Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore.

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