1.

Branches of government
- Legislature makes legislations and statutes
- Executive implements laws e.g. for drink-driving, police does
random checks
- Judiciary adjudicates disputes, interprets laws, makes laws in
areas where there are no statutes.
3. Sg court system
i.
Court of Appeal (not bound by its previous decisions, i.e. no
horizontal stare decisis)
ii.
High Court, Arbitration Court, International Commercial Court etc
iii.
State Courts e.g. District Court, Magistrates Court, Juvenile
Court, Family Court, etc.
- Go from level 3 to level 1 courts
- Court of Appeal is binding to every court below it
- High Court is binding to every court below it
- www.statecourts.gov.sg
4. Legal systems
- Common law legal system (tradition)
o Usually constitutional separation and independence
between the legislative and judicial branches of
government
o An adversarial process (a legal system used in the common
law countries where two advocates represent their parties
positions (which is usually conflicting), before an impartial
(unbiased) person or group of people, usually a jury or
judge, who attempt to determine the truth of the case) of
inquiry, presided over by an impartial judiciary. Usually
present in countries that follow the British law (judge is not
that involved, takes a more passive role, let the two parties
fight it out)
o The application of case-law precedent (stare decisis) i.e.
court is bound by decisions of courts higher in its
hierarchy); &
o Adversarial system
- Civil law legal system
o Codified laws (damn a lot of rules and statutes that lawyers
have to remember)
o Instead of looking at previous cases (common law), judges
look at laws only.
o Law is found in statute books alone (list of codes)
o Not bound by stare decisis, judges play a more active role
i.e. inquisitorial examinations (instead of sitting back,
judges try to find out whats happening as well)
5. Sources of Law
- Constitution
- Acts of Parliament (e.g. Companies Act)

Subsidiary legislation (e.g. Singapore Code on Takeovers and

Mergers
Case law
Customary law
International law
English law

Bill legislation (when the bill is being debated in the Parliament) law
(after the bill has been passed and the legislation is enforced)