tough love in singapore.ppt

* Tough Love in Singapore 邢思宇 洪甲凤 Singapore is a parliamentary republic with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government. The Peoples Action Party has won every election since self-government in 1959, and governs on the basis of a strong state and prioritizing collective welfare over individual rights such as freedom of speech, an approach that has attracted criticism from organizations such as Freedom House. The Constitution of Singapore establishes representative democracy as the political system. The Peoples Action Party (PAP) has won control of Parliament in every election since 1959. Freedom House ranks Singapore as partly free in its Freedom in the World report, and The Economist ranks Singapore as a hybrid regime, the third rank out of four, in its Democracy Index. Singapore is consistently rated one of the least corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International. A British-educated lawyer, he became prime minister in 1959 when the city-state gained its independence from Britain as part of the Federation of Malaysia. The elder Mr. Lee led Singapore for 31 years and is credited with turning a resource-poor, malarial island into a modern financial center with one of the world’s highest per capita incomes. “I think we have to go in whatever direction world conditions dictate if we are to survive and to be part of this modern world,” he said. “If we are not connected to this modern world, we are dead. We’ll go back to the fishing village we once were.” The legal system of Singapore is based on the English common law system. Major areas of law – particularly administrative law, contract law, equity and trust law, property law and tort law – are largely judge-made, though certain aspects have now been modified to some extent by statutes. However, other areas of law, such as criminal law, company law and family law, are almost completely statutory in nature. *