Prosecutorial discretion is an essential element of our criminal justice. This discretion vests in the Attorney-General as the Public Prosecutor and is constitutionally protected. Recently, there have been several challenges to the exercise of this discretion on the basis of alleged violation of the constitutionally protected right to equal treatment. This article examines the basis of the prosecutorial discretion and considers the value of developing prosecution guidelines to assist prosecutors in making decisions consistently and fairly.

This article examines the law relating to the forfeiture of deposits, and the relevance of the law on contractual penalties. Deposits are very much like agreed sums payable upon a breach of contract, except for the fact of advance payment. However, there are very strong judicial statements to the effect that deposits are not subject to the same rules that apply to agreed sums payable upon a breach of contract. Consequently, while agreements to pay penalties are not enforceable, a reasonable penalty may be retained if paid in advance as a deposit. This article examines the legal position from both technical and policy perspectives.

The Privy Council stated in de Lasala v de Lasala set of propositions concerning the effect of English decisions and opinion of the Judicial Committee on the courts of Hong Kong. Last year these views were supplemented, and perhaps contradicted, by remarks in Tai Hing Cotton Mill Ltd. v Liu Chong Hing Bank Ltd. The implications of these statements are considered and the attitudes and practices of the Hong Kong courts since de Lasala are explained and criticised. The conclusions reached is that undue deference is paid to House of Lords and Privy Council authority in a manner which is destined to appear incompatible with emerging political realities in Hong Kong. This analysis has obvious relevance for lawyers and legal theory in Singapore and Malaysia.

The main task of this article is to inquire into the reasons for the general decline and final abolition of the jury system in Singapore. It also seeks to discover why the decline and fall of a major legal institution aroused so little public debate, let alone outcry. To this end, the focus must necessarily be historical, but, in the context of a nation still in the process of discovering its legal heritage, it is hoped that the account which follows will contribute in some small way towards the development of our legal history.

What is the appropriate way of theorising about corporate bankruptcy law? That lies, argues this paper, in rejecting Pareto and Kaldor-Hicks efficiency in favour of a particular conception of transaction cost efficiency, and in rejecting the 'contractarian' Creditors' Bargain Model in favour of the 'contractualist'Authentic Consent Model. The paper vindicates these arguments with an analysis of the automatic stay which characterises the collective liquidation regime, of the pari passu principle often said to be at the heart of this regime, and of the liability imposed in some jurisdictions on the managers of terminally distressed companies for failing to take reasonable steps to avoid further loss to their company's creditors.

In 2019, Professor Ginsburg delivered the Distinguished Visitor in Intellectual Property Lecture at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. Titled “Fair Use in the US: Transformed, Reformed, Deformed?”, the lecture explored US caselaw applying the statutory fair use exception, highlighting its excesses and apparent rebalancing. Four and half years (and a pandemic) later, the Supreme Court has rendered decisions in two fair use cases (Google v Oracle; Andy Warhol Foundation v Goldsmith). Together, these controversies prompt inquiry whether the Supreme Court has redrawn the landscape of US fair use and copyright law, expanding fair use for commercial use of functional computer code, but narrowing it for at least some exploitations of “appropriation art.” That inquiry extends to the fair use doctrine’s potential to accommodate massive inputs of copyrighted works into databases to enable “machine learning” by artificial intelligence systems.

In recent years the term “relational” to describe a class of contract has gained currency in English Courts. Whereas contract class is usually identifiable by type such as landlord and tenant or employment, “relational” contracts are variable agminates of indeterminate incidents, employing confusing, and inappropriate, epi-fiduciary language. I explore the incidents in an unsuccessful effort to find machinery which predicts whether a contract is relational. I review cases to determine how existing Contract law deals with each incident. I review the theoretical literature, seeking alignment between theory-based norms and case-embedded incidents. I question why Judges have not made the connection between incidents and norms. I propose an operable definition of relational contract, proposing four “incidents” using a domestic, new kitchen, contract as a thread. Central to my definition is a claim that implicit or express in such contracts is an obligation to maintain, develop or build a relationship.