Government and politics
When was trial by jury abolished in Singapore?
Singapore
Jury trial David Marshall (Singaporean politician) Choor Singh Jury system in Hong Kong Jury trial
Jury_trial-Singapore David_Marshall_(Singaporean_politician)-Biography Choor_Singh-Judicial_career Jury_system_in_Hong_Kong-Abstract Jury_trial-India
In Singapore, the jury system was abolished in 1969. Jury trials for all had been earlier abolished in 1959, except for capital offenses with death penalty. As Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew described to the BBC and in his memoirs, due to his experiences as a trial lawyer, "I had no faith in a system that allowed the superstition, ignorance, biases, and prejudices of seven jurymen to determine guilt or innocence."
Born into an Orthodox Jewish family descended from Indian Baghdadi Jews in Singapore, David Marshall was educated at Saint Joseph's Institution, Saint Andrew's School and then Raffles Institution. He became interested in politics and the independence movement at an early age. After graduating from the University of London, he was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1937. He later became the most successful criminal lawyer in Singapore, with a reputation "Marshall never loses". Known for his sharp eloquence and imposing stances, he claimed that he had secured 99 acquittals out of 100 cases he defended for murder during Singapore's period of using trial by jury. When Singapore's leader (and Marshall's political opponent) Lee Kuan Yew abolished the jury system in 1969, he quoted Marshall's reputation to illustrate its "inadequacy". He was the brother of Joseph Saul Marshall who died under odd circumstances in Sydney in 1945, potentially connected to the Taman Shud Case. David Marshall died in 1995 of lung cancer. 
On 11 July 1960, Choor Singh became a district judge. In that year, he also published a book called "Gaming in Malaya" on the Common Gaming Houses Ordinances of the Federation of Malaya and Singapore. On 28 August 1963, he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. During Singh's 17-year career on the bench, 105 of his judgments were reported in the law reports. Particularly noted for his criminal judgments, he was known as "the Hanging Judge" for handing down a large number of capital sentences. He was the first judge in Singapore to impose the death penalty on a woman, Mimi Wong, a cabaret singer who murdered her Japanese lover's wife in 1970. In a 1996 interview with "The Straits Times", he said: "I'm satisfied that I've made no mistake and that I've done my duty according to the law." All the five judgments he wrote as a member of the Court of Criminal Appeal were upheld by the Privy Council, then Singapore's highest appellate court. In an oral history interview, Singh said that one of the murder trials that he had presided over, the "Body in the Box" case, led to the abolition of jury trials in Singapore criminal cases. Following the trial of a young man, Freddy Tan, for the murder of his friend whose decomposed body was found stuffed into a box, Singh agreed with the jury to convict Tan of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentence him to life imprisonment. However, he later learnt that in the jury room a bullying Dutch juror had wanted to impose the death penalty, but because the other jurors disliked his attitude they voted to impose a lower verdict on Tan. The father of the deceased felt an injustice had been done and went to see the Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Lee then sent for Singh, and Singh informed him of what had happened with the jurors. Lee asked Singh, "Well what do you think. Shall I abolish the jury?" Singh replied that if he had tried Tan without a jury, he would have convicted him of murder without hesitation. Following a public inquiry, jury trials were abolished for all criminal cases in 1969. Between 1967 and 1979, Singh was also Commissioner of the Land Acquisition Appeals Board. In 1972, in the case of "Gian Singh & Co. Ltd. v. Banque de L'Indochine", Singh wrote a dissenting opinion – uncommon in Singapore – when sitting in the Court of Appeal with Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin and Justice Tan Ah Tah. An honorary member of the Law Society of Singapore, he retired as a judge on 30 November 1980. 
The practice of trial by jury has a long history in Hong Kong. Like most jurisdictions with jury trial, this tradition was introduced into Hong Kong when it became a British colony. The "Ordinance for the Regulation of Jurors and Juries" was first enacted in 1845. Ever since then, the practice of trial by jury has been important part of Hong Kong’s judicial system. This is also recognised in the Basic Law, Article 86:  
Jury trials were abolished by the government of India in 1960 on the grounds they would be susceptible to media and public influence. This decision was based on an 8:1 acquittal of Kawas Nanavati in "K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra", which was overturned by higher courts, on the grounds that the jury was misled by the presiding judge. 