It is widely held that there are no indigenous roots in China for the rule of law; it is an import from the West. The Chinese legal tradition, rather, is rule by law, as elaborated in ancient Legalist texts such as the Han Feizi. According to the conventional reading of these texts, law is amoral and an instrument in the hands of a central rule who uses it to consolidate and maintain power. The rule is the source of all law and stands above the law, so that law, in the final analysis, is whatever pleases the ruler. _x000D_ _x000D_ This essay argues, to the contrary, that the instrumentalism of the Han Feizi is more sophisticated and more principled than the conventional reading recognizes. It suggests that, by examining the text of the Han Feizi through the lens provided by American legal theorist Lon Fuller, we can observe an explicit articulation of what Fuller called the internal morality of law. The principles of this morality are elaborated and their importance explained. In this way, the Han Feizi is retrieved as a significant reference point for thinking about legal reform in China today.

The article deals with the question of when equity will impose a constructive trust on strangers who deal with trust property. This has traditionally occurred in two types of situations, namely where the stranger has received such property knowing of a breach of trust, and where the stranger has knowingly assisted in a fraudulent and dishonest design; in the latter case there is controversy as to whether actual or constructive notice suffices. The article criticises the classification, contending that the first category is covered by the general law of priorities, and suggests that actual notice be required for "knowing assistance".

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.

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.

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.

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.