Senior Minister Lucian Lung, the Honorable Chief Justice, Minister Edwin Tong, members of the Judiciary Agency and Menllo, distinguished guests. This four volume book series being launched today is a major piece of work. It covers, as you've heard, 25 years of legal changes from the year 2000 to 2025. the bills that the ministry of law worked on and some of them with other ministries. It covers primarily the period when Prof. Ja and I were law ministers and in the last six months of 2025 when Minister Edwin had taken over the law ministry. The value of this project is not just in its scope which is very extensive. It is also in what it records. how the Singapore government has deliberately and practically made laws that shape the legal environment to deal with real world problems, make difficult choices, and advance the public interest. The government's power to make law is a very significant power, fundamental when you want to do law reform and change laws. In many countries because of political deadlock or political controversies or simply a lack of political will, parliaments abdicate this power and by default the courts end up doing what law reform they can, which of course is seriously limited in many ways because the courts are not equipped to deal with law reform in Singapore. changes to the law, law reform, the government does it. The courts perform their traditional role, which is to apply the law to the cases before them. In this past 25 years, parliament has passed close to a thousand bills. Of those, fully 20% nearly 20% about 200 bills were handled by Menlaw. If you look at the other bills that Minaw worked with the other agencies, ministries, MHA, MDDI, the figure is nearer 30%. Law reform changes rights obligations. It creates institutions. It determines when the state should intervene and where boundaries should be drawn. Over the past 25 years, the various laws which have been passed have reshaped the legal landscape across many areas of Singapore society. And in doing so, they have reshaped the framework of our society itself. As I say this, I want to share a conversation I've had many years ago with Mr. Lee Kwanu before I joined cabinet. We discussed what I might do at that stage in my career. We discussed possibly staying on in private practice, a judicial appointment or joining the cabinet. I call it a discussion, but for those who have dealt with Mr. Lee, you would know how it would have been. It wasn't a usual HR meeting. uh judiciary and law practice. We both knew the landscape and he set out his views quite trenchantly as usual. And then he set out what a cabinet minister can do. He said a minister can conceptualize, help pass legislation and can have a very substantial positive impact on society as a whole and help make Singapore a much better place for everyone. As an MP in parliament, I could see what Mr. Lee was referring to, what Prof. Ja did as law minister and what the other ministers had done. Subsequently, when I took over as law minister in 2008, Mr. Lee's words were firmly in my mind in area after area, my officers, I, the junior PH, we discussed, conceptualized, new laws that can be passed, how existing laws can be made better as society's needs changed and evolved. and each time the benefit was to a very substantial section of the public. This four volume series covers legal changes in several fields including civil, criminal, family, public and constitutional law, restructuring and insolveny, intellectual property, international dispute resolution and the extraordinary legal measures that were introduced during COVID 19. I will touch on just four areas by way of examples. Take family justice. I'll spend a little bit of time on this because I think it illustrates in a very u effective way how law reform can substantially impact people daytoday lives of ordinary Singaporeans. Singaporeans encounter the legal system at some of the most difficult moments in their lives when they have to deal with family law. If the process is slow, if it's long, if it's costly or overly adversarial, it makes a painful situation worse. The impetus for change was a meeting I had with two women who came to see me at my MPS many, many years ago. two separate cases. Both were similar. On the first case, the lady was going through divorce proceedings. When she had come to see me, she had already paid $40,000 even though it wasn't even at decree night and the hearings kept getting postponed. She had two children. She earned about $5,000 plus dollars and she struggled to keep paying the legal fees. and each time there was a hearing she had to take leave from her job to attend court and hers was not an uncommon experience. The second case was almost exactly similar. So we did an indepth study of the situation and we decided the system had to change. I mentioned this to make a basic point about law reform. We are limited only by our own ideas and imagination. No one at that stage thought that family law needed to change because what was happening was how we knew it had always been done. Before 2014, there were no specialist family courts, no specialist family judges, no specialized family court rules. Disputes were dealt with primarily through the adversarial process. cases could take 12 months, 18 months, sometimes 24 months. Voluminous affidavits and of course fees were charged based on every page of the affidavit. Um endless accusations, the couple rearguing the entire marriage through affidavits in court. All the unhappinesses which arose in the course of the marriage being put before the court. So I told my team there are only three issues. One is the marriage over. By the time they are in the family courts, the marriage is over. Second, how much money? Most Singaporeans have a HTB flat, some CPF, some cash and bank, some investments. How do you settle the capital? How do you settle monthly maintenance? What do you do with the children? The third question, the most important question. So, in 2014, I said we should aim for an affidavit of one page. We still haven't reached there, but we have gotten somewhere close. Cut out all these things about what happened in the past. Look for the future. Family Justice Act was passed in 2014. It established the Family Justice Courts. Processes were by law simplified and streamlined. The approach that was directed was to be simple, fast, inexpensive, efficient, and reduce the trauma. Next year in 2015, the simplified divorce track was introduced to allow cases to be resolved even faster at lower cost, less friction for the parties and their children. 10 years later now, I visited the family justice courts a couple of weeks ago there to understand how it's going on. There are about 6,000 divorces annually. You'll see from the slide about 6,400 last year about 2/3 4,281 to be exact now or in the simplified track. What does that mean? The median completion period from beginning to end is 4 months now. So 4,000 plus couples with their children perhaps 10,000 souls who have a better experience every year. And that's not including the extended families. A divorce now can be handled for somewhere between$1 to $3,000 if the disputes are sorted out early. And the family relationship is not as damaged as it otherwise might be, especially important for children. And contrast this with the pre204 situation. If these 4,000 plus cases had to go through a long, costly and bitter process, there was no public clamor or demand for the change. But it makes a real impact. In 2023, another key reform was made in this area. Maintenance enforcement process was introduced through the family justice reform act of 2023. We saw too many case cases where parties usually the women struggle to enforce the maintenance orders that have been made in their favor. Before COVID in 2017 2019 period about 2,700 cases annually and 15 to 20% were repeat cases. A bit less after COVID but still very many. These women had to go to court to apply for enforcement. Some had to bring three to four applications a year. Again, many would have to take leave and go and apply at tancot. Again and again, excuses would be given by the respondent. In a different context, I've referred to these excuses as I've got to shampoo my pet toad or something. And you know, the courts had the choice of either sending the chap to court or giving an adjournment when there were some other things they could do. But essentially you know it was a very unsatisfactory situation and it was expensive because if you want to find out the other party's means you have to employ lawyers accountants they have to go they don't have the legal powers to require for example information from IRA or CPF banks so expensive process the final result is still not good enough for the courts to make a good assessment. But under this maintenance enforcement process now we have established a division of maintenance enforcement officers within minaw. These officers who are given legal powers to get information from all the government agencies and banks under law. They can get information on assets and means. They can conduct consiliation to help parties to reach a settlement. And for cases that don't settle, they can submit a report to the family justice court to make the appropriate orders. The result results are encouraging. Nearly 1,400 cases have been referred to the maintenance enforcement officers in the initial phases. Over 70% of those cases went through consiliation with the MEOS and reached the settlement. And again it avoids a lot of frustrated uh emotions, expense, money. I've gone into some detail on family justice as I explained to see how law reform can affect individuals on the street and make a positive change. The same is true for many of the other laws in the four volume series. This is how our legal landscape has changed with substantial impact on society. There have also been major reforms to criminal justice system in the past 25 years. There are too many to detail. Stronger protection for vulnerable victims. Repeal of marital immunity for rape. Introducing community-based sentences to enhance rehab. And at the other end of the spectrum, increasing sentences through the sentences for enhanced public protection, stronger protection against grooming and voyerism, and more recently, major steps on online safety working together with MDDI. Access to justice has also been significantly strengthened with the government changing 60 years of its legal philosophy with the setting up of public defenders office and directly funding criminal defense. Since its operation, the PDO has helped more than 4 to 500 cases every year, and the number has been increasing. Law reform beyond the domestic scene has also shaped Singapore's position externally as a trusted place for international business and dispute resolution. Arbitration is one example. Today, we are a leading global arbitration hub. This was a result of deliberate active government policy. Legal framework for arbitration was kept current and arbitration friendly. When some cases came out based on existing law which were not arbitration friendly, we moved legislation in parliament within 3 months to reverse the court decisions. The international arbitration act was amended regularly to align with international standards. The wider ecosystem was made conducive. A firstass arbitration center in SIA. Excellent physical infrastructure in Maxwell Chambers, an open system where people from all over the world could be arbitrators or council here. It wasn't an open system not too long ago, resulting as we thought it would much more work for Singapore lawyers and of course planting our flag in the countries which are major sources of arbitration work. I think Minister Edin Tong and Devinda Singh have just come back from New Delhi from where a lot of our cases come from. The last example I will give is COVID 19. Final volume of this series is entirely dedicated to COVID 19 related law reforms. The first COVID legislation was conceptualized and drafted in about nine days. A record. The attorney general, Lucen Wong, was central to this effort because we were introducing novel legislation with no president anywhere in the world with impact on thousands of people. Commercial tenants all across Singapore, couples who had paid deposits to hold weddings, receptions and hotels and restaurants, others who had made event bookings. The economic impact was tens of billions of dollars. And we I took a lot of comfort that one of the top commercial lawyers in the world was looking through it advising on the legal aspects with a key understanding of the commercial implications and was taking personal charge of the drafting. JCA Sushil Nyer and the late Mr. Patrick Ang helped us significantly in the process as well and we went on to amend the framework eight times to react to the conditions on the ground. COVID 19 showed the power of law reform in a crisis. Moving quickly but calibrating carefully as conditions changed. The changes brought swift and practical relief to literally tens of thousands of persons. Couples whose weddings could no longer proceed did not have to worry about their entire wedding depos deposits being forfeited. Tenants who had been affected were able to get rental relief and so on. They didn't need to as like in other countries they didn't need to go and try and argue force measure of frustration of contracts. We roped in the asked the state courts to assist us. It was rough and ready justice. We said literally don't worry so much about the law. Look at the individual cases and decide. No appeal. If the deposit is $8,000, you see what the restaurant or hotel has spent and take a view $2,000. Order that and ask for the balance to be paid up. Did it get it correct to the last scent in every case? Probably not. Did it do justice such that most people went away satisfied? Yes, except for some of the restaurants. In total, more than hundred billion dollars worth of contracts were impacted. This four volume series captures a significant chapter of Singapore's legal development at a meaningful point in our legal history as we mark the 200th anniversary of the second charter of justice. It will, I hope, be of value to students, academics, practitioners, and the courts in understanding why each law was made. The policy chapters explain why the law was put in place, the problems it was meant to solve, the choices that were considered, and why one approach was taken as opposed to other approaches that could have been taken. They were written by the officers who worked on the policy and the legislation and they are contributions from others, practitioners, institutions, academics, judges. They add different perspectives. They allow us to gain insights into how the law works on the ground, how the reforms fit within the wider legal landscape, how the law has been applied to real cases and suggestions on how the law can be further improved. The majority of these laws were passed when Senior Minister Lee was a prime minister. It is therefore especially apt that he is our guest of honor today. I thank the managing editor, Professor Iman, editors, authors, current and former minor officers, other ministers and agencies, and all those who contributed their time, experience, and institutional knowledge to this series, as well as all who helped to carry these reforms through from policy to practice over the past 25 years. Thank you.