An Insider’s Preface on ‘Rule of Law’ Confusions

In 1983 Singapore’s then Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, said it was a problem for Singapore that graduate women were not marrying at the same rate as non-graduate women; and when they did marry, they weren’t having as many children. This meant, he argued, that Singapore’s next generations were losing out on the genetic talent pool. It was, of course, a highly controversial speech.

At the time of Lee’s speech, I was a second-year law student at the National University of Singapore. I wrote a parody, the “Procreation Encouragement Act”, for the Student Union magazine. I modelled the “Procreation Encouragement Act” very closely on the legislation we were studying. The national coat of arms, margin notes, tortured legislative language – apart from its obviously satirical content, my “Act” looked and read like a product of Parliament. I conscientiously acknowledged the idea I was borrowing: my constitutional law tutor, Dr Hugh Rawlings, had referred to an imaginary “Procreation Encouragement Act” in a tutorial problem he set us. I asked for his permission, took the title and wrote the “Act”.