Death Penalty Singapore-Style: Clinical and Carefree

Abstract

Singapore has developed a jurisprudence that death penalty and capital proceedings are no different from other minor criminal proceedings. Instead of scrutinizing criminal legislation on their substantive fairness, the courts have instead consistently restricted their adjudicative function to one of procedural assessment. In so doing, formalistic and textualist techniques are employed to achieve crime control ends at considerable expense of due process. This paper seeks to discuss the jurisprudence that has been moulded, and examines how much it has deviated from other Commonwealth jurisprudence.