page_title: Doctrine of bias in Singapore law
section_title: Actual bias
hierarchical_section_title: Doctrine of bias in Singapore law / Actual bias
caption_attribution_description: English: Chiam See Tong at the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) rally at Choa Chu Kang Park, Singapore, on Tuesday, 2 May 2006, during the hustings for the 2006 general election. On election day, Chiam polled 55.84% of the votes to retain his seat at Potong Pasir for the sixth consecutive time since 1984.
context_page_description: Bias is one of the grounds of judicial review in Singapore administrative law which a person can rely upon to challenge the judgment of a court or tribunal, or a public authority's action or decision. There are three forms of bias, namely, actual, imputed and apparent bias.
  If actual bias on the part of an adjudicator can be proved, the High Court can quash the decision. Cases of actual bias are rare due to the difficulty of proving the existence of a prejudiced judicial mindset. Imputed bias arises when a decision-maker has a pecuniary or proprietary interest in the decision he or she is charged to adjudicate. The courts have also extended the category of imputed bias to situations where adjudicators have personal, non-pecuniary interests in decisions. The existence of a situation leading to an imputation of bias warrants the decision-maker being automatically disqualified.
  Even if actual or imputed bias cannot be proved, an appearance of bias is sufficient for a judgment or decision to be set aside. The legal test for establishing apparent bias in Singapore has been the subject of some controversy. In the cases of Jeyaretnam Joshua Benjamin v. Lee Kuan Yew and Tang Liang Hong v.
context_section_description: If actual bias on the part of a judge or tribunal can be proved by a party to a legal proceeding, or on the part of a public authority by a person aggrieved by its decision, the High Court can quash the judgment or decision. A decision-maker will be deemed actually biased if it is shown that he or she was influenced by partiality in reaching the decision or was actually prejudiced in reaching the decision. In Chee Siok Chin v. Attorney-General (2006), allegations of actual bias were made based on the actions of the judge, Justice Belinda Ang. Her failure to prevent the opposing counsel from interrupting the appellant was supposedly reflective of a biased state of mind. Justice Ang adopted the view in Locabail (UK) Ltd. v. Bayfield Properties Ltd. (1999) that cases of actual bias are rare due to the difficulty of proving the existence of a prejudiced judicial mindset. Rather, the inclination of the law "is to protect litigants who can discharge the lesser burden of showing a real danger of bias without requiring them to show that such bias actually exists".
  The allegations of actual bias in Chee Sok Chin were deemed to be "entirely frivolous and ludicrous", in that "a fair-minded and reasonable observer would hardly on those flimsy grounds" conclude that Justice Ang "would not be able to make an objective and impartial decision of the matters" before her as another impartial judge would. Citing Tang Liang Hong v. Lee Kuan Yew (1997), an apparent bias case, the judge said that claims of actual bias need to be based on facts which are "substantially true and accurate".
  In Hennedige Oliver v. Singapore Dental Council (2007), the High Court held that members of the Disciplinary Committee ("DC") of the Council had not acted in a biased manner towards Hennedige even though they had interjected a number of times during Hennedige's testimony, and had treated the person who had lodged a complaint against Hennedige gently but had cross-examined Hennedige robustly and strongly challenged his evidence. This was because the members of the DC were entitled to seek clarifications from Hennedige. Furthermore, his evidence covered much wider ground than the complainant's, and part of Hennedige's oral evidence at the inquiry did not feature in his written explanation. The nature of the Hennedige's answers at the inquiry warranted the additional questions, and he must have expected his peers in the DC to question him thoroughly on his many assertions.
  There have been a number of cases in which allegations of actual bias have been made out. In Wong Kok Chin v. Singapore Society of Accountants (1989), the High Court held that people hearing disciplinary proceedings have to approach the issue with an open mind without prejudgment. In this instance, the members of the Society's Disciplinary Committee had gone beyond their authority to carry out a due inquiry and had caused the inquiry to become an inquisition aimed at securing evidence to justify a finding of guilt. Likewise in Singapore Amateur Athletic Association v. Haron bin Mundir (1993), the Court of Appeal stated that the slanted questions and preconceived views of the Association's disciplinary subcommittee had breached natural justice. The hearing had been "more like an inquisition to vindicate the corporate views of the appellants" than a dispassionate attempt at finding the truth. In Chiam See Tong v. Singapore Democratic Party (1993), Chiam challenged his expulsion from the political party following a hearing before the disciplinary committee of the Party's Central Executive Committee ("CEC"). The High Court found that the members of the disciplinary committee had been biased, as was reflected in the confrontational and hostile tone taken by certain CEC members. In addition, some of them had acted as judges in their own cause as they had been the object of remarks made by Chiam, which had prompted the disciplinary proceedings.
caption: Chiam See Tong in May 2006. In a 1993 case arising from Chiam's challenge against his expulsion from the Singapore Democratic Party, the Court of Appeal held that the Party's disciplinary subcommittee had acted in a biased manner.
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