Book contents
- Towering Judges
- Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy
- Towering Judges
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- Introduction: Towering Judges – A Conceptual and Comparative Analysis
- 1 Towering Judges and Global Constitutionalism
- 2 The Landscapes that Towering Judges Tower Over
- 3 Sir Anthony Mason: Towering Over the High Court of Australia
- 4 Lady Hale: A Feminist Towering Judge
- 5 Hugh Kennedy: Ireland’s (Quietly) Towering Nation-Maker
- 6 Judicial Rhetoric of a Liberal Polity: Hong Kong, 1997–2012
- 7 Judicial Minimalism as Towering: Singapore’s Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong
- 8 Nepal’s Most Towering Judge: The Honourable Kalyan Shrestha
- 9 Barak’s Legal Revolutions and What Remains of Them: Authoritarian Abuse of the Judiciary-Empowerment Revolution in Israel
- 10 PN Bhagwati and the Transformation of India’s Judiciary
- 11 Justice Cepeda’s Institution-Building on the Colombian Constitutional Court: A Fusion of the Political and the Legal
- 12 A Towering but Modest Judicial Figure: The Case of Arthur Chaskalson
- 13 Chief Justice Sólyom and the Paradox of “Revolution under the Rule of Law”
- 14 The Socialist Model of Individual Judicial Powers
- 15 The Civil Law Tradition, the Pinochet Constitution, and Judge Eugenio Valenzuela
- 16 Towering versus Collegial Judges: A Comparative Reflection
- Appendix
- Index
7 - Judicial Minimalism as Towering: Singapore’s Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2021
- Towering Judges
- Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy
- Towering Judges
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Contributors
- Introduction: Towering Judges – A Conceptual and Comparative Analysis
- 1 Towering Judges and Global Constitutionalism
- 2 The Landscapes that Towering Judges Tower Over
- 3 Sir Anthony Mason: Towering Over the High Court of Australia
- 4 Lady Hale: A Feminist Towering Judge
- 5 Hugh Kennedy: Ireland’s (Quietly) Towering Nation-Maker
- 6 Judicial Rhetoric of a Liberal Polity: Hong Kong, 1997–2012
- 7 Judicial Minimalism as Towering: Singapore’s Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong
- 8 Nepal’s Most Towering Judge: The Honourable Kalyan Shrestha
- 9 Barak’s Legal Revolutions and What Remains of Them: Authoritarian Abuse of the Judiciary-Empowerment Revolution in Israel
- 10 PN Bhagwati and the Transformation of India’s Judiciary
- 11 Justice Cepeda’s Institution-Building on the Colombian Constitutional Court: A Fusion of the Political and the Legal
- 12 A Towering but Modest Judicial Figure: The Case of Arthur Chaskalson
- 13 Chief Justice Sólyom and the Paradox of “Revolution under the Rule of Law”
- 14 The Socialist Model of Individual Judicial Powers
- 15 The Civil Law Tradition, the Pinochet Constitution, and Judge Eugenio Valenzuela
- 16 Towering versus Collegial Judges: A Comparative Reflection
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines the life and contributions of Singapore's Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong as a towering judge. Chan’s imprint on Singapore public law goes beyond his jurisprudential contributions and extends to fostering a mindset shift that has led to a reformed image of public law litigation as a professional and legitimate endeavour, and not simply a political and politicised activity. In presenting Chan as a towering judge, we conceptualise ‘towering’ as a relative and contextualised idea. Chan towers not only because he is one of the best legal minds in Singapore, and is more committed and diligent than most, but also because he was able to navigate what would be considered a limited policy space in a dominant-party state. Accordingly, although his jurisprudence may be described as minimalist in some quarters, we present his judicial minimalism not as judicial conservatism but as judicial courage.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Towering JudgesA Comparative Study of Constitutional Judges, pp. 134 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021