Walter Woon Cheong Ming (born 12 September 1956) is a Singaporean lawyer who served as the fifth attorney-general of Singapore between 2008 and 2010. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, Lee Kong Chian Visiting professor at the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law, and the dean of the RHT Legal Training Institute.
A lawyer by profession, Woon specialises in company law and securities regulation. Having graduated from the National University of Singapore and St. John's College, Cambridge, Woon joined the teaching staff of the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law in 1981 and subsequently served as Sub-Dean and Vice-Dean. He was appointed Professor of Law in 1999. He had also served as the legal adviser to the president of Singapore and the Council of Presidential Advisers between 1995 and 1997.
Woon was a Nominated Member of Parliament between 1992 and 1996. He became the first Member of Parliament since 1965 to have a Private Member's Bill become a public law in Singapore—the Maintenance of Parents Act, which was passed in 1995.
From 1997 to 2006, Woon served in a number of diplomatic capacities, including Singapore Ambassador to Germany (1998–2003) with an accreditation to Greece (2000–2003), and Singapore Ambassador to Belgium, with concurrent accreditation to the European Union, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the Holy See.
Woon was appointed Second Solicitor-General in 2006 and subsequently Solicitor-General in 2007. He served as Attorney-General between 2008 and 2010.
Early life and education
Woon, an ethnic Singaporean Chinese of Peranakan descent,. was born on 12 September 1956 in Singapore. to schoolteachers. He was a head prefect at Pasir Panjang Primary School (where his father became principal years later). and a prefect while at Raffles Institution.. During his national service, he served as a member of Pioneer, the MINDEF magazine. Following his A-levels he was considering business administration, but ended up accepting a scholarship from DBS Bank to study law instead after it was suggested to him by the scholarship officer..
He earned his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the National University of Singapore (NUS), graduating in 1981 with first class honours. That same year, he also topped the postgraduate practice law course, winning the Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par Memorial Prize.. He joined the teaching staff of the NUS Faculty of Law that year, focusing his teaching and research on company law and securities regulation. In 1983 he graduated with a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree with first class honours from St. John's College, Cambridge, which he completed on a Commonwealth Academic Staff scholarship..
Career
Academic Woon was called to the Singapore Bar in 1985. The first edition of his book Company Law was published in 1988.. The same year he became a Sub-Dean of the NUS Faculty of Law, then served as Vice-Dean from 1991 to 1995. On 1 February 1999 Woon was appointed a professor of law. In November 1990, Woon appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment No. 3) Bill (Bill No. 23/90) to make representations on the proposed introduction of an elected President for Singapore. He took the view that since the elected president should be politically neutral, Cabinet members should only be eligible to stand for election five years after leaving politics.. The report of the Select Committee was published as .
Never afraid to speak his mind, in July 1991 in an interview by The Straits Times Woon commented: "We effectively don't have a Constitution. We have a law that can be easily changed by Parliament, and by the party in power because the party is Parliament. The changes themselves might not be controversial, but it is unsettling how flexible the Constitution is, unlike, say, in the United States.". In reply, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong pointed out that past changes to the Constitution had been made only with a two-thirds parliamentary majority and not done lightheartedly, as the intensive discussions and the two-year gestation period of the Elected President Bill proved. He affirmed that the Constitution had to evolve to reflect the changing needs of the people, and that it could not be assumed that the Constitution, drafted in 1965, would be the best Constitution for always and should be frozen in time. "So to say that because the Government in power changes the Constitution there is no Constitution is ridiculous, to put it mildly.".
Nominated Member of Parliament
Woon was a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) for three terms, from 7 September 1992 to 6 September 1994, from 7 September 1994 to 6 September 1996, and from 7 September 1996 till 15 December 1996 when Parliament was dissolved for the 1997 general election.; ; . See also ; ; ; ; ; .
In 1992 at the start of the Government's annual Speak Mandarin Campaign, the Minister for Information and the Arts George Yeo said in a newspaper article that the rising use of English by Chinese Singaporeans was a "disturbing trend" as "[w]e become very exposed to Western cultural influences via books, magazines and films. Some influences are good. Others are harmful, especially to the structure of the family.". This provoked Woon to respond that "[t]he subliminal message being sent is that those who speak English are dangerous to society and that the wider use of English threatens the social fabric of Singapore". He deplored this view because good values were neither Asian nor Western: "Why should we confine ourselves to one or the other? Singapore isn't a Western society. It isn't an Asian society. It is a cosmopolitan society." He noted that "[t]he emancipation of women, the rule of law, the equality of citizens irrespective of race, language or religion, the right to representative government: These are values we have adopted from the 'decadent' West.". George Yeo responded in .
In September 1992, Woon was appointed to the select committee to review the Companies (Amendment) Bill (Bill No. 33/92) which proposed, among other things, that scripless trading in securities listed on the Stock Exchange of Singapore be authorised so that share transfers can be made through computerised book entries.. The Select Committee's report was published as . He was a director of Intraco Ltd. (1989–2000) and Natsteel Ltd. (1997–2001), both listed on the Stock Exchange.
On 23 May 1994, Woon moved a Private Member's Bill which was eventually passed by Parliament on 2 November 1995 as the Maintenance of Parents Act.. The Act, which entitles parents at least 60 years old and unable to maintain themselves adequately to apply to a tribunal for their children to be ordered to pay maintenance to them, was the first public law that originated from a private member's bill since Singapore's independence in 1965.. The first ever Act since 1965 originating from a private member's bill was the Roman Catholic Archbishop Bill introduced by P. Selvadurai and Chiang Hai Ding in 1974 and passed the following year as the Roman Catholic Archbishop Act (now ). This was a private act, not a public one: Chia, ibid. See also ; ; ; . In its 5 December 1994 issue, Time magazine picked Woon as one of 100 young world leaders, the only Singaporean to make the list..
From 1995 to 1997, Woon was Legal Adviser to the President of Singapore and Council of Presidential Advisors. During this time, he represented the President as junior counsel before the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore Tribunal in Constitutional Reference No. 1 of 1995, 1 S.L.R.(R) [Singapore Law Reports (Reissue)] 803. which involved the interpretation of provisions of the Constitution of Singapore touching on the ability of Parliament to curtail the President's discretionary powers.
Diplomat
Between September 1997 and September 2006, Woon was seconded to the Foreign Service. He was Singapore's Ambassador to Germany from 6 February 1998 to July 2003,; ; ; . and was concurrently accredited to Greece from March 2000 to July 2003. He then served as Ambassador to Belgium (from 22 August 2003) with concurrent accreditation to the European Union, the Netherlands (from 22 October 2003),; . Luxembourg and the Holy See.. In this capacity, he represented Singapore together with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Law S. Jayakumar at the funeral mass of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican City on 8 April 2005,. believed to be the largest gathering of heads of state in history.. In 2006, the Vatican made Woon a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great,. which is conferred on Roman Catholic men and women in recognition of their service to the Church, unusual labours, support of the Holy See, and the good example set in their communities and country.
Solicitor-General and Attorney-General Woon was appointed to the post of Second Solicitor-General on 3 October 2006,; . and Solicitor-General on 2 July 2007.. In 2007, he was also made a Senior Counsel. Between January 2007 and 31 March 2010, he was a member of the advisory board of the School of Law of the Singapore Management University.. In February 2008, Woon was appointed by the Ministry of Finance to chair a steering committee to review the Companies Act.Now the : see ; .
Woon became Attorney-General on 11 April 2008.; ; . Three months into the job, he created some controversy when delivering an off-the-cuff speech at the launch of the Law Society of Singapore's Public and International Law Committee. He said:
In mid-May, Woon commented that an acquitted person may not be guilty in law, but guilty in fact. Two months later, without referring directly to these remarks, Judge of Appeal V.K. Rajah wrote in a judgment that such comments could undermine confidence in the courts' verdicts and the criminal justice system, which was based on the doctrine of the presumption of innocence.XP v. Public Prosecutor 4 S.L.R.(R) 686 at para. 98, High Court: "The question for the court in every case is not whether it suspects the accused has committed the crime but whether the Prosecution has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that he has indeed committed it. It is trite that courts can never convict on the basis of suspicion and/or intuition. Such is the conclusion demanded by and enshrined in that cardinal principle, the presumption of innocence, upon which is founded the most elemental rule of the criminal justice system: that the Prosecution must establish guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. Objective and not subjective belief is the essential touchstone of guilt, and there is simply no place for subsequent speculation or implication that an acquitted accused may be 'factually guilty'." See also . The Minister for Law K. Shanmugam was asked in Parliament on 25 August 2008 to clarify the Attorney-General's comments. Shanmugam described the presumption of innocence as an "important and fundamental principle" which the Government was "absolutely committed to upholding". Nonetheless, it was "entirely possible for a person to have committed acts which amount to a crime and yet, there may be no conviction", as the trial process was designed to prove guilt and not innocence. He added: "It is for the courts, and the courts alone, to exercise judicial power and decide the question of guilt, in a trial.".
With effect from 20 May 2008, Woon was appointed a director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.. He also served on the Presidential Council for Minority Rights between 2008 and 2010.