page_title: Administrative law in Singapore
section_title: Duty to consult and procedural legitimate expectation
hierarchical_section_title: Administrative law in Singapore / Procedural impropriety / Failure to act fairly or breach of natural justice / Duty to consult and procedural legitimate expectation
caption_attribution_description: English: ICA (Immigration and Checkpoints Authority) Building.
context_page_description: Administrative law in Singapore is a branch of public law that is concerned with the control of governmental powers as exercised through its various administrative agencies. Administrative law requires administrators – ministers, civil servants and public authorities – to act fairly, reasonably and in accordance with the law. Singapore administrative law is largely based on English administrative law, which the nation inherited at independence in 1965.
  Claims for judicial review of administrative action may generally be brought under three well-established broad headings: illegality, irrationality, and procedural impropriety.
  Illegality is divided into two categories: those that, if proved, mean that the public authority was not empowered to take action or make the decision it did; and those that relate to whether the authority exercised its discretion properly.
context_section_description: A duty to consult interested parties before reaching a decision may be imposed by statute, or arise by way of a legitimate expectation on their part. The courts are reluctant to imply a statutory duty to consult in the absence of factors leading to a legitimate expectation, or to imply a duty to consult people other than those actually required by statute to be consulted. A statutory duty to consult is almost invariably regarded as mandatory and, where there is consultation, it must be adequate.
  In the absence of a pronouncement by the Singapore courts on this matter, the English decision in R. v. Brent London Borough Council, ex parte Gunning (1985) is useful as Hodgson J. laid out the basic requirements of a legal duty to consult: (1) consultation must be at a time when proposals are at a formative stage; (2) the proposer must give sufficient reasons for any proposal to permit of intelligent consideration and response; (3) adequate time must be given for consideration and response; and (4) the product of consultation must be conscientiously taken into account in finalising any statutory proposals. The decision-maker must carry out the consultation with an open mind, but is not bound by views expressed to it.
  A duty to consult an individual who will be affected in advance of the taking of a decision may also arise from a legitimate expectation resulting from a representation given by the public authority to the individual. The origin of this doctrine lies in common law fairness. The legitimate expectation may be "aroused either by a promise or by an established practice of consultation". An example of the former case is Attorney-General of Hong Kong v. Ng Yuen Shiu (1983), where the government of Hong Kong had expressly announced that certain illegal immigrants liable to be deported would be individually interviewed and that their cases would be treated on their merits. An example of the latter is the GCHQ case, where there was a well-established practice of consultation before employment conditions were altered.
  The existence of the doctrine of procedural legitimate expectation in Singapore was accepted in Siah Mooi Guat. In that case, the applicant, a Malaysian citizen, had been granted a re-entry permit and employment pass valid until 6 March 1987. However, on 5 September 1986, the Controller of Immigration informed her by letter that she had been declared a prohibited immigrant and that her re-entry permit and employment pass had been cancelled. The applicant appealed to the Minister for Home Affairs to reconsider the matter, but the Minister rejected her appeal. The applicant thus took out an application for an order of certiorari to quash the decisions of the Minister and Controller. Counsel for the applicant argued that the re-entry permit valid till 6 March 1987 gave the applicant a legitimate expectation that she would be allowed to stay in Singapore until the expiry of the permit, and that this legitimate expectation gave her at least two procedural rights: an opportunity to make representations, either orally or in writing, to the Minister before he considered her case; and a duty on the Minister to give reasons for the decision to deem her an undesirable immigrant. In support of the argument, the applicant tried to rely on Schmidt v. Secretary of State for Home Affairs (1968), where Lord Denning M.R. made the obiter statement that where an alien's permit to stay in the country "is revoked before the time limit expires, he ought, I think, to be given an opportunity of making representations: for he would have a legitimate expectation of being allowed to stay for the permitted time".
  However, in dismissing the application, the Singapore High Court said that this statement was not supported by English authority and, in any event, Lord Denning had not explained when the opportunity to make representations ought to be given to an alien. Furthermore, no legitimate expectation arose in the applicant's favour as the permit issued to her did not amount to a representation that she could remain in Singapore till its e
caption: ICA Building, the headquarters of the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, photographed in July 2006. In a 1986 case brought by a woman who had been declared a prohibited immigrant by the Controller of Immigration, the High Court accepted that the doctrine of procedural legitimate expectation applies in Singapore, but held that the applicant could not avail herself of it.
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