Marley v Rawlings: Reflections from Singapore

• Main Authors: YIP, Man, Goh, Yihan
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2014
• Subjects: Legislation; Supreme Court decisions; Singapore; Asian Studies; Commercial Law; Courts
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/1410
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The recent UK Supreme Court decision in Marley v. Rawlings, concerning the rectification of a will pursuant to English legislation, raises two points of reflection for Singapore law. These points arise not from the ratio of the case, which was decided on a narrow legislative basis, but from the well-considered obiter dicta contained in Lord Neuberger's judgment. First, Lord Neuberger propounded that the interpretation of all legal documents, such as contracts or wills, are governed by the same approach. While Lord Neuberger may not have had statutory interpretation in mind, it is likely that any grand theory of interpretation would have to include statutes as well. Indeed, in Singapore, an allusion to a general unified approach was tantalisingly voiced by V.K. Rajah J.A. in Zurich Insurance (Singapore) Pte Ltd v. B-Gold Interior Design & Construction Pte Ltd when he said that "the adoption of the contextual approach to contractual interpretation is conceptually broadly similar to the purposive approach which the courts now adopt vis-a-vis statutory interpretation".