Latent or hidden effects of laws have received little attention from social scientists and (outside the oral tradition of practicing lawyers) almost none from the legal profession. Such effects, and often latent functions too, may differ sharply from the particular laws' ostensible purposes. Taking, as this writer does, defamation as an illustration, the law's ostensible manifest purposes ( (i) to restore, so far as possible - by monetary compensation or other means - the unlawfully injured person's reputation to its pre-defamed state, and (ii) to punish contumacious action by award of exemplary damages ) is shown to be subordinated, perhaps even supplanted, in several quite common situations where the rules and procedures bend to achieve outcomes different from those advertised by the law. Some such effects are unplanned; some plainly are engineered. A few may be viewed by one or both parties as beneficial; others as destructive. Those issues aside, judges, lawyers, litigants and the public might agree that things ought to be called, and be seen to operate, by their proper names and by undisguised procedures. The example of the late Robert Maxwell is used to show how a person of wealth and power could long exploit defamation laws to shield a questionable business reputation from legitimate questioning. That saga serves mainly as a springboard to examination of half-a-dozen other critical issues. Each involves the masking or manipulation of defamation rules and latches attention onto their moral, cultural or economic ramifications. Latency is demonstrably present in law. To ignore it, or to regard it as excrescence or contradiction, is to short-change all parties to the business of social and legal reform.

This article considers, from the perspectives of legal history and jurisprudence, the longstanding controversy surrounding the interpretation of the phrase "wrong or contrary to law" in section 84 of the Penal Code, and suggests that the evidence points to an interpretation that "wrong" means "legally wrong" or "contrary to law". It also considers the practical implications that follow from such an interpretation, which implications would allow for some role, nevertheless, for extralegal considerations.

The Indonesian, Singaporean and Canadian States define or describe themselves as multicultural. Since law is part of one's culture, a state's multiculturalism should lead that state to recognise a multiplicity of laws, to recognise one form or another of legal pluralism. Singapore and Indonesia practice legal pluralism by granting state recognition to laws other than state law. Canada however does not really do so. The author questions Canada's commitment to multiculturalism in law.

There are two types of rules on standing to apply for judicial review of legislation or executive action on constitutional grounds. 'Interest-based' rules grant standing to a person who can demonstrate a 'sufficient interest' in the subject matter of the application. 'Rights-based' rules require the applicant to identify a specific constitutional right vested in him that has allegedly been violated. Singapore's standing rules are now rights-based. Rights-based standing rules are distinctively advantageous as they provide a forum for the courts to develop the content of constitutional rights as part of the standing inquiry; such development is not always possible at later stages of the litigation process. Unfortunately, this benefit of rights-based standing rules is obscured because Singapore's standing rules are overly complicated and not doctrinally consistent. This paper argues for a simplification of the present standing rules to fully realise the benefit of rights-based standing rules. While the paper focuses on judicial review on constitutional grounds, it concludes with observations on how standing rules may be similarly clarified in the field of administrative law and without abandoning the rights-based framework.

This article tries to say as simply as possible why we must take seriously the project of constructing a law of unjust enrichment. It answers those who might assert that the twentieth century success of the law of restitution has rendered that project redundant. It says how the law of unjust enrichment differs from the law of restitution and warns against allowing the language of unjust enrichment to be understood in a sense which would erode or eliminate those differences. The twenty-first century law of unjust enriched will emerge from the law of restitution, but something must be left behind. The butterfly will differ from the caterpillar.

The Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore has been deeply involved in the teaching, research and practice of criminal law in Singapore since its early days. Pioneer members of the faculty developed teaching and resource materials which subsequent generations of scholars have built on. This paper charts the evolution of teaching at the law school and highlights the centrality of criminal law to the teaching and practice of law as well as our conceptions of justice. Criminal law has a profound impact on law students, and at NUS Law, it is a matter of pride that its students have an equally profound impact on criminal law in Singapore—as students, practitioners and leaders.