A Preliminary Survey of the Right to Presumption of Innocence in Singapore

• Main Author: CHEN, Siyuan
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: Criminal Law; Rule of Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research_smu/45; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=sol_research_smu
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The right to presumption of innocence is said to exist in almost all criminal justice systems, including Singapore. Curiously, however, no Singapore case has ever attempted to establish the exact source and contours of this longstanding right. This is unsatisfactory, as this diminishes the meaningfulness of what is supposed to be a fundamental right in the criminal justice process. The primary aim of this article is thus to conduct a preliminary survey of the law on the presumption of innocence in Singapore. It begins by proposing the Woolmington conception as a workable starting point, but posits a guiding principle to further determine the scope of the right (Part I). On that footing it surveys the various sources of law in Singapore to identify the relevant rules that could either protect or detract from the right (Part II), and concludes with some reflections on the results of the survey (Part III), including the tentative suggestion that, on the proposed conceptualisation at least, the right to presumption of innocence could be better protected in Singapore and may need to be properly reconceptualised altogether.