Comparative law has been utilised by both the court and the parliament in determining what

the law should be and how it should be developed in our local context.
One instance where the Court of Appeal utilised this concept is in the landmark contract law
case of Sembcorp Marine v PPL holdings.1 The court here considered the factors that other
civil law systems adopt in proving the existence of a contract, such as France, Russia and
Germany.2 Analysing how these jurisdictions have mechanisms that or more less parallels
that in the common law system in New Zealand3, it was held that it could have some bearing
to the development of contract law in Singapore. The court here also conceded that it is
beneficial that commercial laws across different systems are harmonised and that rejection of
legal concepts solely based on different legal systems is undesirable.4 Agreeing that such civil
law system concepts could be useful, the court went on to lengthily analyse each component
of the concept to determine if and to what extent should such laws be imported into our
system. However, after the lengthy and detailed analysis, the court held that the application of
the concept should be very limited due to the differences in litigation process5 and more
importantly, the existence of the Evidence Act in Singapore which should be given the
greatest weight in this area of law.6
Comparative law is not only useful in filling up the gaps in our common law system, but also
utilised to reject laws that were originally in our system. This was clear in the Parliament’s
decision to enact the Application of English Law Act (“AELA”). The then Minister of Law,
Prof S.Jayakumar, firstly compared the English legal system with Singapore’s in the practical
context. He stated that due to the age of the English legal system, the number of statutes that
are authoritative in our courts would be indeterminate and many are extremely difficult to
find if we continue to adopt the English legal system wholesale.7 Following this, the Minister
went on to compare the commercial laws of England and Singapore, and stated that although
the law in this area is extremely similar, Singapore’s legal system have matured such that we
do not need to automatically adopt all English statutes that are enacted but only a determined
few that are relevant to our system.8 Summing up, after the comparison of the 2 different
systems, the Minister pushed for the AELA to be enacted in order to bring certainty to the
legal system of Singapore by a wholesale rejection of ancient English statutes and shielding
Singapore from English legislative changes. This was necessary due to the development of
Singapore’s commercial activities. Thus, the independent development of our legal system to
suit this need must be allowed by the law.

1
Sembcorp Marine Ltd v PPL Holdings Pte Ltd and another and another appeal [2013] 4 SLR 193
2
Id at [37]
3
Id at [36] and [37]
4
Id at [38]
5
Id at [72]
6
Id at [65]
7
Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (12 October 1993) vol 61 at cols 609 – 610 (Prof
S.Jayakumar, Minister of Law)
8
Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (12 October 1993) vol 61 at col 611 (Prof S.Jayakumar,
Minister of Law)