Recent Constitutional Developments: Of Shadows and Whips, Race, Rifts and Rights, Terror and Tudungs, Women and Wrongs

Abstract

This article seeks to draw out the constitutional significance of recent events and developments in Singapore government and politics and to provide a provisional orientation for evaluating the legal issues raised. These developments illumine the nature of local constitutional culture as well as issues of identity, rights discourse and modalities of accountability, as an aspect of Singapore constitutionalism. Topics examined include the issue of minority rights and state interests in the light of the tudung controversy, developments towards a self-regulatory model of parliamentary democracy and the issue of unenumerated constitutional liberties as a possible line of development in Singapore constitutional jurisprudence.