The passage of a generation: Revisiting the report of the 1966 Constitutional Commission

Singapore did not have a deliberate ‘constitutional moment’ in the postcolonial era; it did not, like India, convene a Constituent Assembly to draft a constitution given by ‘We the People’ to ‘Ourselves’.1 Neither did local political parties undergo protracted negotiations with the departing British colonial powers, characteristic of the experience of many countries with Westminster-based constitutions such as Malaysia. In its genesis, the Singapore Constitution was not a product of mature deliberation or a broad-based popular, consultative process.