SGLaw200 Youth Forum: Dialogue on the Rule of Law and our Social Fabric

Um, so she's asked me to make a, a short opening remark about what the rule of law means to me.

Uh, and I thought I'll just go back to what PM said this morning.

PM made a, a speech.

I thought it was a very good speech, but there were two points that stood out for me.

I'll share the first point first, and then I'll end with the la- the second point.

The first point that stood out for me was when he said that the rule of law, if you ask this question of anyone, you might get different answers.

And I, I, I thought that, uh, when I reflected on it, and I thought, yeah, it's, it's right because it's, it's probably depends on your own context, your own lived experiences, and, uh, how you see yourself, right, and, uh, what situation you're in.

And I, I thought I'll take some time to unpack a bit of this and share with you my perspective of what the rule of law means for me.

First, I think rule of law, perhaps most importantly, is the way in which we organize ourselves.

It's a framework.

It's a, call it a rule book if you like, but it's a framework within which we organize ourselves.

What does that mean? That means how we do things day-to-day, like what Chen Ying said earlier, what you heard from PM earlier, how we do things day-to-day, uh, and why we expect things to happen in a particular way.

Uh, if you buy a ticket to a concert, you expect to be let in, right? That is the rule of law.

If you want to sign a lease, you want to be- become a tenant, uh, and the cost of, uh, housing is rising, uh, will the landlord kick you out after you sign the lease even though the rentals have gone up? The answer is no, you can't.

That's the rule of law.

So a contractual framework, a framework within which our rights are respected, that is the rule of law, and it happens every day.

And it is undergirded by what I think we have in Singapore, which is a first-class legal system, a judiciary that's first rate, jurisprudence that is well known all around the world.

Our judges, our judgments are well known around the world, and people have respect and regard for it.

And I think that's what reinforces concurrently all the time the strength and application of the rule of law.

And then there's also the criminal side, criminal laws.

It sets out what you expect to see in a society.

It underscores the social compact that we have.

It tells us what we can't do and what we expect that we can't do, what is wrong, why we can do what we do, and why we can't do what we do, and what we regard as wrong or reprehensible even.

So when, uh, a burglar breaks into your home at night, why do you expect the police to investigate and to try to apprehend the person? Why? It's because we have the rule of law.

We have a framework that says, you can't do this.