PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Launch of the EW Barker Centre for Law and Business

Mrs Gloria Barker and members of the Barker family. Members of the NUS Faculty and the Law Faculty, in particular. Ladies and gentlemen. A very good evening to you all. 

I am very honoured and happy to be here for this special occasion to launch the EW Barker Centre for Law and Business, and to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NUS Faculty of Law. I am particularly glad to have Mrs Barker and all her children here with us today, including the daughters, Carla and Deborah, both of whom graduated from NUS Law.

It is fitting to name the Centre for Law and Business after Mr Barker, Singapore’s first and longest serving Law Minister. He was an accomplished lawyer. He won the Queen’s Scholarship. He read law at Cambridge University together with his friends, my parents, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Mdm Kwa Geok Choo, who had also been in Raffles College.

Mr Barker played a pivotal role in our Separation from Malaysia. On Mr Lee’s instructions, he drafted the Separation Agreement, the Amendment Bill for the Constitution of Malaysia, and the Proclamation of Singapore. These foundation documents were the legal basis for our independence. They made it happen. Fifty years later, none of the provisions in the documents have ever been disputed or challenged, not even fundamental provisions such as the guarantee of the Water Agreements. Singaporeans owe a profound debt of gratitude to the draughtsman of their independence, Mr Barker.

Singaporeans owe a profound debt of gratitude to the draughtsman of their independence, Mr Barker.

PM Lee

But Mr Barker’s contributions went beyond legal drafting. He and Dr Goh Keng Swee negotiated the terms of the Separation with Tun Razak, who was then Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister in Kuala Lumpur. Razak had been Mr Barker’s school-mate in Raffles’ College, the predecessor of NUS. The negotiations were highly confidential and delicate and Mr Barker’s friendship with Razak enabled the two sides to work out a solution amicably, and to pull off this bloodless legal coup. They didn’t talk about EQ then, but Mr Barker possessed not only a very able legal mind, but also a first class personality. After independence, Mr Barker remained a key asset to the Singapore government. He helped smoothen our relations with Malaysia as he kept up friendships with old friends across the Causeway, including the late Sultan of Johor and the Sultan of Pahang.

As Law Minister, Mr Barker oversaw the formation and development of our Constitution. We had inherited the British Parliamentary system, but we could not simply adopt Westminster practices wholesale. The Wee Chong Jin Commission was set up to review the Constitution. Arising from the Constitutional Commission’s report, we introduced key safeguards, particularly the Presidential Council for Minority Rights, to ensure that minority rights are protected.

Mr Barker also drafted key pieces of legislation needed to govern Singapore, for example the Land Acquisition Act, which enabled the government to acquire private land compulsorily for national development. But most of the land was encumbered with squatters. When the land was cleared for development, the displaced squatters had to go somewhere and Mr Barker played a role in this too because as Minister for National Development, he helped resettle displaced squatters quickly into newly built public housing. This allowed us to develop Singapore rapidly, laying the foundation for modern Singapore.

Mr Barker was not just a legal eagle. He had a keen practical and political sense. In the 1960s when our population was growing rapidly, the Government introduced the “stop at two” policy. The question was how to implement it and some ministers considered enforcing this through legislation. Fortunately, they asked the law Minister, Mr Barker, who advised against it. He recommended that the government incentivise families instead and that was the wiser approach. Then, when Mr Barker was tasked to clean up the Singapore River, he had to relocate the peddlers and hawkers along the river. He did not simply evict them. He built hawker centres to be rented out cheaply to the hawkers, so that they could continue their businesses and therefore today, Singaporeans and tourists enjoy our chicken rice and bak chor mee at affordable prices and in orderly and hygienic conditions. Our hawker stalls sometimes even receive Michelin Stars!

Mr Barker and his colleagues placed great importance on the rule of law. They recognised that the rule of law is the cornerstone of development. In some countries, the rule of law has become empty words. The courts become corrupt or compliant, and governments act arbitrarily. Or in other cases, the forms of the legal process trump everything, including justice and common sense. Legal redress becomes a theoretical option, but a practical impossibility.

Our founding fathers steered clear of both these hazards. They built on the system we had inherited from the British. They upheld clear property rights, fair and transparent rules, impartial and transparent ways of resolving disputes, and an efficient and honest judiciary and that gave people a sense of justice and security, and businesses the confidence to invest in Singapore, to create wealth and prosperity. Surveys of trust in government show that the judiciary is among the most trusted institutions in Singapore. Because our legal system is respected and admired domestically and abroad, we have distinguished ourselves from our competitors and made our way in the world.

But laws cannot be static, because the world is not static. Business is ceaselessly innovating. Globalisation and technology are changing how business is done, and spawning new business models. E-commerce straddles national boundaries, and requires sound frameworks for enforcement and taxation. Intellectual property protection and cybersecurity are serious concerns requiring clear rules and effective safeguards. Emerging technologies like block-chains and artificial intelligence will require equally innovative regulatory approaches. Up to date, effective but not onerous regulation has become a new source of economic competitiveness. Therefore, it is critical to keep our laws and our lawyers up to date, and maintain our competitive edge. 

This is where the Centre can help us. You have a role to play, through research, symposia, and teaching. Your contributions should be practical and grounded in reality, to improve the lives of Singaporeans and to foster Singapore’s development. Your concerns should not just be about abstract theory, or papers for publication, valuable as these can be. The Centre should engage industry partners, businesses, policymakers and legal practitioners, other centres of legal learning, in Singapore, as well as the region. To come up with fresh ideas and policy recommendations that keep ourselves abreast of legal developments, so that we remain a preferred location for businesses, for arbitration, for dispute settlements in Asia. 

The Centre of Law and Business will now bear Mr EW Barker’s name. By combining legal know-how with political instincts and a human touch, Mr Barker came up with practical solutions and contributed to creating and building a prosperous Singapore. I hope that the Centre will continue his endeavour, and prove worthy of the illustrious name that you now carry.

Congratulations and thank you very much.