Talk:Powers of the president of Singapore/GA1

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 13:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC) I will do this review; I'll leave comments here as I go through the article.[reply]

  • The lead is too long. Per WP:LEAD, a long article should have a lead of three to four paragraphs; this is quite long, but five paragraphs is too much. I would suggest cutting almost all the details about financial powers; a summary sentence will do, since that material is well covered in the body. Other cuts may also be necessary to shorten it further.
  • It seems odd that after 26 years of not having a popularly elected president, the government suddenly decided that they needed one. What precipitated the discussion? I noticed in Right to vote in Singapore law that Lee Kuan Yew's suggestion of two votes for married electors with children between the ages of 35 and 60 followed "a relative swing in votes against the ruling People's Action Party government in the general election of 1984", which no doubt caused some alarm at the prospect of substantial changes in future governments' policies. Did something similar cause this discussion?
    • I think that is covered in "President of Singapore". — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:37, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hmmm, just had a look at that article and realized that it doesn't really cover that issue. Oh, dear. Inserting the information may take a while. — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:40, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I do think that material should be covered in one or other of the articles. If it should be here, the best thing to do is probably to fail this article and wait until you have a student who can expand it with the new information. I can go ahead and add here any other issues I find, if you like. If it should be in the other article, then I think there should be at least some mention of it here, in summary form. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:57, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Is such information even publicly available, professor? If so, I think it belongs in President of Singapore, not here. --Hildanknight (talk) 18:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      In the other article is fine; a sentence or two would do here in that case. I think if it were me I'd put it in this article, because it directly relates to the powers of the president, but I'll go with whatever you two feel is appropriate. And if it does go in the other article then I think I'd pass this for GA without that sentence, because GA doesn't require fully comprehensive coverage. I suspect sources do indeed exist; at a minimum surely there were newspaper articles about the change at the time, and public statements from government officials about the change. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I would think there would be information on this in a standard textbook on Singapore constitutional law such as Thio's Treatise. Sorry, but I don't have time right now to look it up. Maybe in a few days' time. — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • By the way, I'm not sure if it is necessary to redlink "Council of Presidential Advisers". I doubt if there's anything more to say about the Council apart from what is already in this article. It meets in private and does not publish any reports on its advice to the President. — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:37, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't mind if you remove it again. However, I think an article could probably be justified -- no doubt everyone who's ever been a member is notable in some way, and a simple list of members and their terms of service would be substantial. The current article doesn't specify when they were created -- as part of the original constitution? -- or if their powers or duties have changed. There's mention of alternates in this article, with no explanation. But it's fine to remove it; if it really does need an article someone will eventually write it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:57, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that a redlink is unnecessary until someone writes the article first (by then, it would be a blue link). --Hildanknight (talk) 18:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The essay you link to talks about red links in See Also sections, lists, and so on. The redlink guideline is what I was thinking of -- it encourages appropriate redlinks in article text. As I say, I think it's justified in this case, but it's not a big deal either way. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:36, 6 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    The CPA was created at the same time as the elected presidency scheme with the specific purpose of advising the President on the exercise of some of his discretionary powers. It did not pre-exist the elected President. (Ugh, not keen on keeping a list of members of the CPA and their dates of service up to date ... :-p) — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional review comments:

  • The article doesn't appear to give much information about the powers of the president prior to the changes in 1991. It seems as if the Council of Presidential Advisers dates back to the original constitution, for example, but that's not made clear. The article focuses on the current powers, and gives a lot of detail about the 1991 changes, for obvious reasons, but information about the powers between 1965 and 1991 should be in the article too.
    • No, the CPA was created at the same time as the elected presidency scheme. See my earlier comment. — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Before 1991, the Constitution of Singapore contained no provisions preventing the Government from squandering the nation's financial reserves and leaving it economically ruined": this is a rather close paraphrase from several sources, and should be modified.
  • Also related to the above sentence: to say that the risk met by the constitutional amendments in 1991 was that an incoming irresponsible government would squander Singapore's cash reserves is presumably not the way everyone saw it. Is it the case that there were opposition parties whose plans included increasing spending? What was their view of the debates? E.g. was there any dissent to the changes, and how was that expressed; did they regard the amendment as an additional method of suppression of plans that ran counter to the prevailing governments ideas? Some background seems to be missing here. There's no such material in Constitution of Singapore, either, though one could argue that would be the place for it. I think this article needs some mention of this sort of thing. Some quick research on Google Books certainly finds material criticizing the existing government, and complaining that the "technocrats " who, in that author's eyes, ran the government, had deliberately structured the president's power so as to allow additional influence by unelected officials.
    • I have to say that I haven't come across much of what you mention in the secondary material on the subject. I suspect one would have to review the parliamentary debates that led up to the introduction of the scheme to see if there's anything about this. Not sure "Constitution of Singapore" is a good place for that material; perhaps "President of Singapore" would be more appropriate. — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Surely there was newspaper coverage at the time as well? Also see my comments below. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:25, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Adding a note to say that perhaps this is part of the same issue I mention earlier: there's no historical context given. My comment above was that there is no motivation given; here I'm asking for the opposition view. In both cases it is context that is missing.
    Yes, but this is supposed to be a sub-article of "President of Singapore", just as "Powers of the President of the United States" is a sub-article of "President of the United States" and so doesn't really give a lot of historical context either. — SMUconlaw (talk) 07:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the difference is that there have been no significant amendments to the power of the presidency since the US constitution was ratified. In Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, for example, there is both historical and political context given. Another approach would be to create an article about the 1991 amendment to the constitution, and add the context material to that, though if the amendment is entirely about the powers of the president it might not be necessary to have a separate article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:25, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Where it is mentioned that Article 5A of the constitution is not yet in force, a footnote explaining the situation would be good -- I did some clicking on links and was unable to figure this out for myself.
    Struck; in scanning the rest of the article I somehow missed the section explaining this.
  • "Initially, the President had the power to disapprove transactions that were likely to draw on reserves": does "initially" refer to 1965 or 1991? If everything in the "Changes to the President's financial powers" section refers to changes to powers that were initially granted in 1991, then it might be best to say so at the start of that section.
  • "When proposed in Parliament, the change was met with strong criticism from legislators on the ground that the provision was so wide that made it open to abuse by unscrupulous politicians": there appears to be a word missing -- should it be "so wide that it made it open to abuse"?
  • Also with regard to the same paragraph, I'm not quite clear on the meaning. Is it the case that the president's only ability to veto a bill is on financial grounds? And that the change being discussed removes that ability for defence and security measures? In other words, there is no veto power other than the financial one, and this change simply reduced that power? If so, I think that should be clearer -- the reference to veto powers didn't seem to me to refer to his financial powers.
  • The phrase "statutory boards and Government companies" is used repeatedly; "statutory boards" is linked, but "Government companies" is not -- could a link or footnote be provided?
  • In the table of powers the "Whether personal discretion" column only contains "yes" or "no". In a couple of cases, as I read through the article, it appears that the situation is a bit more complicated -- for example, the powers the president has under the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, and also under the Internal Security Act, limit his discretion in some circumstances. Perhaps it would be better to put "Limited" or "Partial" in this column in such cases.
  • "The reports, along with the Attorney-General's opinion on the case, are then forwarded to Cabinet which then advises the President as to whether to exercise his powers": the relevant row in the table has "No" under "Whether personal discretion". Does this mean that the President must in all cases follow the Cabinet's advice? Or merely that he has no power to instigate any pardon, but only to review and exercise discretion on the particular recommendations he receives from the cabinet? If the recommendation is to pardon, can he deny it?
  • I realized reading the sections on 5(2A), 5A, and 22H that I couldn't tell when any of these provisions were enacted. As far as I can tell, 5(2A) dates from 1991 and 22H from 1965; 5A dates from 1996. I think the dates for each provision should be given.
  • A related suggestion: how about adding a date column to the powers table, giving the date when the power was originally given to the president, and perhaps also the date of the most recent substantial revision to that power?
  • "At that time, Article 5(2A) provided that ...": does this mean that the article has been modified since then? If not, I'd suggest removing "At that time".
    Judging from the fact that 5A dates from 1996 and 5(2A) from no later than 1991 (I think), it seems clear that 5(2A) was indeed modified. The historical sequence of events isn't clear enough.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've completed the review, and have decided to fail the article. The article is written to a very high standard, and is thorough, but I feel it needs to be gone through again with an eye to the contextual background, both historical and political. It might be that some of this material ends up in a separate article on the amendments to the constitution, and this article contains only a summary of the current powers of the president, but since the article does contain some historical discussion at the moment, which leads me to assess it as if this were the place for the historical material. I don't believe these changes can be completed in a short time. The GA criteria don't require comprehensive coverage, but they do require broad coverage, and I am failing this article on that basis. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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