ABSTRACT
Vellama d/o Marie Muthu v Attorney General remains the first and the only occasion where the Singapore judiciary had the opportunity to review a challenge to the local electoral process. Specifically, the Singapore Court of Appeal held that the Prime Minister had a constitutional duty to call for a by-election when a casual vacancy arose. But, on the facts, the Court of Appeal also held that the applicant, a resident voter of the Hougang Single Member Constituency (SMC), had no standing to seek declaratory relief from the courts after a by-election to fill the vacancy at Hougang SMC had been carried out, and she thus incurred no ‘special damage’ after that to seek judicial relief. This deferential stance taken by the Court of Appeal is emblematic of the judicial ethos in Singapore that matters of public policy are the proper remit of the Executive and that courts should not be seen as the first line of defence against administrative abuses of power. If so, as admitted by the Court, judicial intervention in election cases in Singapore would only occur in the most exceptional cases; and, in almost all cases, any such review would only be a mere chimera.
