In June 2003, the government adopted the Declaration on Religious Harmony as part of a multi-pronged strategy to address the problem of aggravated ethnic-religious relations, heightened after the discovered of the bomb plot masterminded by Jemaah Islamiah, a group affiliated with Al Qaeda. This instrument belongs to a corpus of 'constitutional soft law', a set of precepts embodied in a text lacking legal status which exerts some degree of legal impact and influences the shaping of state-society relations. Such informal standards shed light on the politico-legal culture, process values of participatory democracy and the practical workings of institutional restraints on public power and governance. This article examples the role of these informal standards within the context of a written constitution, with a particular focus on the Declaration-whose principles have implications for the scope and practice of religious liberty in Singapore, a secular state with a religious society.

The negative pledge clause has been in use for many years and is to be found in virtually all loan documents. The negative pledge clause usually seeks to protect the unsecured creditor by providing contractually that the debtor shall not, so long as any part of the indebtedness remains outstanding, create any security in favour of another creditor. It is also used to protect floating chargees by restricting the freedom which the chargor has to deal with the assets comprised in the floating charge. The efficacy of the negative pledge clause depends on a number of factors. In some instances, the negative pledge clause will improve the position of the unsecured creditor and the floating chargee. This "security" aspect of the negative pledge clause is discussed in this article.

The position of a charterer under a time charterparty in respect of his obligation to give contractually valid orders as to the employment of the vessel have spawned numerous problems. Amongst these are the matters which pertain to orders relating to the employment of the vessel as the termination of the charter period approaches. This article discusses the position of the contracting parties in respect of such orders.

It is commonly assumed that the Court of Appeal rejected a doctrine of good faith in contract law_x000D_ in Ng Giap Hon v. Westcomb Securities Pte Ltd, and as a result there has been no serious debate in Singapore of the proper role, nature and function of good faith. This article explores the definitional, normative and methodological aspects of the debate, and argues for the introduction of a duty of good faith in Singapore contract law. The content of such a duty must nonetheless be fact-sensitive in order to preserve contractual autonomy and commercial certainty. A series of recent decisions is also examined to demonstrate the courts' support for such an approach.

This article examines the impact of law school and legal education on the moral and professional identities of law students through surveys and interviews of law students from the Class of 2010 at the National University of Singapore. Questions were asked to ascertain how students viewed the relationship between their personal convictions and professionalism, what they thought of lawyers and the work they would do as lawyers in future, student's opinions as to law's relationship with justice, morality and other social phenomena, and students' expectations of legal education. This article seeks to increase consciousness of how law school is remaking students and developing the moral and professional identities of future lawyers, and to facilitate conversation that reshapes legal_x000D_ education to achieve its aims.

This article gives a short outline on some aspects of the present status of Indonesian conflict of laws, and the extent to which the Dutch colonial regulations are still valid, or have been revised since independence. Following a general discussion on the basis for the validity of the old regulations and the present views on law revision, we shall examine some topics to illustrate the remaining influence of Dutch legal scholars on Indonesian case law and jurisprudence. We have chosen to focus on three areas in particular, the shift from the nationality to the domicile principle in the field of personal status, the problem of renvoi, and the law of contract.

In Singapore, no petition for divorce is permitted in the first three years of marriage unless leave of court is given on the basis that the case is one of exceptional hardship suffered by the petitioner or of exceptional depravity on the part of the respondent. This article examines the purpose of the three-year restriction on divorce and whether its retention in Singapore continues to promote the best interests of family members affected. It suggests that a shorter period of restriction, without exceptions, be adopted. A brief survey of the marriage relationship and the recent patterns of divorce in Singapore is also made here.

The term "incurred" plays a fundamental role in the operation of the deduction provision in section 14(1) of the Income Tax Act. However, its meaning has yet to be judicially examined in any depth by the Singaporean courts. There is however, a significant body of Australian Jurisprudence on the meaning of this expression. This article examines the Australian pronouncements on this concept and comments on their potential persuasive value in Singapore.

A few words of explanation at the outset are perhaps necessary – if nothing else than to explain the apparently cryptic title of this review essay. What in fact began as a somewhat straightforward review of a book on the history of marine insurance took a wholly unexpected turn and morphed into a general essay on the beauty, scholarship and function of legal history as viewed through the lenses of marine insurance. Indeed, in addition to being a magisterial two-volume history of the law of marine insurance, the present work demonstrates – in the most vividly possible way – at least three fundamental aspects (or, more accurately, benefits) of legal history as a whole.

This article examines the income tax treatment of a married couple who are living together. The law requires that the income of a wife to be aggregated to the income of her husband, upon which it is taxed as the income of one individual in the name of the husband. Although it is possible for the wife to opt for separate taxation, the default position is still based on income aggregation. This article examines the law, the possible reasons for it and its consequences. The continued use of the income aggregation principle is questioned, and an alternative approach is suggested.