Stare Decisis in Singapore and Malaysia: A sad tale of the use and abuse of statutes

A study of the cases and literature with regard to stare decisis in Singapore and Malaysia will reveal at least one salient characteristic - the propensity, primarily of the Courts, to misread statutes and twist them (whether inadvertently or otherwise) in order to justify a particular conclusion. Ironically enough, at the end of the day, similar (though not identical) conclusions could have been reached without the need to resort to any particular statutory provision. In this short article, I shall not endeavour to retrace ground already well covered by others, but will set out, in rather summary form, further reflections on the use (or abuse, rather) of statutory provisions in the context of our doctrine of precedent.