K. Shanmugam

As Minister for Law, Shanmugam has made clear that the law has to be tempered with empathy. This has been the basis to make Singapore’s laws more compassionate, with greater collectivism, and to make the country look out for those who are unable to look after themselves. During Shanmugam’s tenure as Minister for Law, significant changes to the justice system and legal industry were made. These include:

• Enactment of the Protection from Harassment Act, to provide remedies and recourse for victims of harassment, online bullying and stalking. Subsequent amendments fortified the Act by establishing a stand-alone Protection from Harassment Court to allow protection to be obtained expediently by victims, including that of intimate partner violence.
• Establishment of the Public Defender’s office, which enhances access to justice for accused persons.[16]
• Major changes to the family justice system in which the child’s welfare and best interests are placed at the centre of the system. Changes also include helping families navigate the court system with less costs and delays by handling family disputes in less rancorous ways.
• Introduction of community-based sentences to tap on community resources in the rehabilitation of offenders. [17]
• Enactment of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, to enable the countering of online falsehoods and their serious consequences. This followed the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods, which was formed in 2018.[18] A member of the Select Committee, during the public hearings, Shanmugam questioned Simon Milner, Facebook’s Vice President of Public Policy for Asia-Pacific, about the misuse of online data by Cambridge Analytica. In response to the questioning, Milner admitted that Facebook should have informed users earlier about the breach of policies.[19] Shanmugam also questioned Thum Ping Tjin on a paper Thum wrote in 2013 about Operation Coldstore. Thum admitted during the public hearings that he had made misleading representations of historical documents on this topic.
• Strengthening Singapore’s position as a leading centre for arbitration, by ensuring that Singapore’s legal framework is pro-arbitration, open and neutral. The International Arbitration Act, enacted in 1994,has been amended over the years to provide legislative support for appointment of emergency arbitrators, clarify that intellectual property rights may be arbitrated, and introduce a default mode of appointment of arbitrators in mulit-party arbitrations, among other amendments.[20]
• Overseeing development of quality arbitration infrastructure, such as the dedicated hearing facilities for international arbitration at Maxwell Chambers. Since its establishment in 2010, Maxwell Chambers has become one of the world’s preferred hearing facilities, and serves as a base for key international institutions offering arbitration services.[21]
• Establishing the Singapore International Commercial Court, and the Singapore International Mediation Centre.[22]
• Successful adoption of the Singapore Convention of Mediation, the first United Nations treaty named after Singapore. 46 states, including China, India, and the United States, signed the Convention when it first opened for signature.[23]
• Establishing a new Appellate Division of the High Court, to enhance the courts’ efficiency and flexibility.[24]
• Piloting conditional fee agreements for lawyers and clients to enter for selected proceedings.[25]

As Minister for Home Affairs, Shanmugam has overseen several programs and initiatives, including:

• Overhauling the existing Penal Code, to modernise Singapore’s criminal laws and enhance protection for the vulnerable in society, such as women and children. These include the introduction of offences that criminalise a wider range of sexual acts involving children and minors, or dealing in child abuse material even if committed overseas by Singaporeans. The amendments also removed immutiy for marital rape in law, and criminalized the act of failing to protect a child, disabled person or domestic helper from abuse leading to death or serious injury.[26]
• Launching the effort to relook women’s development in Singapore, which culminated in a White Paper articulating Singapore’s long-term action plans to better protect women and promote gender equality in all spheres of society. These include recommendations to legalise elective egg freezing for women aged 21 to 35 irrespective of marital status, normalise flexible workplace arrangements, ease caregiving burdens by enhancing grants given to home caregivers, to protect women from harm and violence online, and to reinforce a culture of safety and respect from an early age.[27][28]
• Repealing section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalised sex between consenting adult males, whether in public or private.[29]
• Reviewing the mandatory death penalty to give judges discretion to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment in cases involving unintentional homicide and drug trafficking by couriers, if the stipulated conditions are met.[30]
• Amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act to fortify Singapore’s drug rehabilitation regime through a more calibrated approach.[31]
• Amendments to the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, and enactment of a new Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act, to make clear the Government’s resolve against religious extremism, and against actions that harm racial harmony.[32][33]
• The enactment of the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures Act), to guard against foreign interference in domestic politics and hostile information campaigns.[34]
• Transformation of the Singapore Police Force’s counter-terrorism capabilities, including the introduction of rapid response forces.[35][36][37][38]
• Launching SGSecure, a community-based national movement to strengthen community resilience and emergency preparedness.[39][40]

• Non-Executive Director of Sembcorp (July 1998 – April 2008)[41]
• Director of Asia Food & Properties (July 1997 – 2001)[42]
• Director of Golden Agri-Resources (May 1999 – 2001)[42]

• Advisory Board of the Faculty of Law[9]
• Raffles Institution Board of Governors[9]
• Media Development Authority[9]
• Sembawang Corporation Industries Ltd[9]

Shanmugam served as the President of the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA) from March 2002 to March 2009.[9]