Why is exceptional injustice not 'exceptional circumstance'?

Lingkesvaran Rajendaren, a Malaysian who worked as a security guard at an illegal casino, and who was sentenced to mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking in 2018, faces execution tomorrow morning (11 February), at around 6am.

On 9 February 2026, he brought an application for stay of execution on the ground that he has an ongoing case which alleges serious mistreatment by Singapore Prison Service and its officers. This application was dismissed today at around 6.30pm by Justice Woo Bih Li.

The judge did not address the veracity or the severity of the allegations of prison mistreatment, and instead, focused on the fact that the application could have been brought earlier. On that basis, he found that it was 'drip-fed' to the Courts and thus dismissed it as an abuse of process.

The decision is published as Lingkesvaran Rajendaren v Attorney General [2026] SGCA 4 (linked). Lingkesvaran's family has since written to President Tharman seeking a temporary respite so that he can pursue his claims of prison mistreatment. Read the letter here.

This article is an academic analysis of the decision, centered around two key questions: Has the Court posed an impossible standard for a stay of execution under 'exceptional circumstance'? Has the Court allowed the state's 'interest to execute' to overwhelm the need for justice to be done?

What are Lingkesvaran's mistreatment allegations?

On 9 February 2026, Lingkesvaran's lawyer filed a Originating Claim ("OC") alleging that the Singapore Prison Service and its officers had violated various duties in the Prisons Act and Prisons Regulations pertaining to the treatment of prisoners. The provisions pertained to, amongst many other things:

• improper proper use of prison punishment when placing Lingkesvaran in a punishment cell;
• failure to provide adequate medical treatment;
• failure to treat him humanely and fairly;
• lack of reasonable access to Visiting Justice in order to address his complaints about prison treatment.

In total, Lingkesvaran alleged breaches of nearly 20 separate provisions across the Prisons Act and Regulations. More details are in the decision and the family's letter to President Tharman.

Briefly, an OC entails that the matter would proceed to trial, with the Claimant, Defendants and any witnesses examined under oath. This would establish whether the claims made are true, so the Court can reach a fair determination of the matter.

It is difficult to imagine how the case will proceed if Lingkesvaran is executed in tomorrow - it might make the claim impossible to prosecute, as Lingkesvaran is certainly the key witness as the person experiencing the mistreatment.

The available grounds for a stay of execution

Following the decision in Pannir Selvam v AG [2025] SGCA 43, it was noted that the Court would grant a stay of execution if the prisoner on death row is scheduled despite there being a relevant pending proceeding according to the Ministry of Home Affair's policy on scheduling of executions ("MHA Policy"). A pending proceeding is relevant if:

(1) The ongoing proceeding affects the person's conviction or sentence.
(2) It is a state-brought proceeding where the person is required as a witness.

In addition, the Court retains the inherent jurisdiction or power to order a stay of execution. At [66]:

We make a final observation, which is that nothing in this judgment undercuts the court’s inherent jurisdiction and power to grant a stay in exceptional circumstances...However, we reiterate our previous observation that there is a high threshold to be crossed before this may be successfully invoked...

Further, in Pannir at [43], the Court noted that the Post-Appeal in Capital Cases Act ("PACC") provided no substantive grounds for a stay of execution, which instead:

“…must be found elsewhere, such as in the fundamental liberties protected by the Constitution or the usual principles of judicial review (see Syed Suhail (JR Leave) at [48]).”

Lingkesvaran pleaded that allegations of prison treatment fell under the third category of 'exceptional circumstance'.

What is the standard for exceptional circumstance?

Lingkesvaran's argument for 'exceptional circumstance' had four limbs (at [22]):

1. Lingkesvaran's civil & constitutional rights are engaged by the mistreatment allegations.
2. The Court has jurisdiction and power to investigate and remedy violation of prisoners' rights, which are central to the administration of justice.
3. Allegations of mistreatment in prison carry exceptional public interest.
4. Lingkesvaran has a substantive right to pursue the mistreatment allegations.

Woo JAD found that none of the grounds brought Lingkesvaran within the exceptional circumstances envisaged in Pannir (at [42]). In dismissing Lingkesvaran's case, Woo JAD held (at [43]):

Simply put, the onus is on PACPs to commence proceedings to vindicate
their rights, constitutional or otherwise, as early as possible. It cannot be that every allegation of a breach of a constitutional or an important right or of mistreatment constitutes an exceptional circumstance. If that were the case, it would be easy to circumvent the need to establish that a pending proceeding is a relevant proceeding.

This statement requires some serious interrogation.

First, it is a tacit acknowledgement that the mistreatment allegations do engage Lingkesvaran's rights, and potentially his constitutional rights.

Despite that, earlier in the judgment at [41], Woo JAD states that in his view:

the unequivocal statements in Pannir Selvam (PACC Application) at [59] denudes the Applicant’s submissions that his civil and constitutional rights are engaged as a consequence of the allegations in OC 136, and/or that allegations of mistreatment in prison carry exceptional public interest, and/or that he has a substantive right to pursue his allegations of mistreatment...

Para [59] of Pannir is reproduced in full here:

In the first place, we stress that PACPs are persons who have been sentenced to death in accordance with law and whose convictions and sentences have been upheld by the Court of Appeal following an appeal or review. Moreover, in so far as the distinction between State-brought and non-State-brought proceedings is of any relevance, we are necessarily concerned with PACPs in relation to whom there are no other pending proceedings that may affect their convictions and/or sentences.The starting point in the circumstances is that the State is entitled to deprive them of their lives, subject to the qualification that this must be carried out in accordance with law (see Syed Suhail (JR Leave) at [47]–[48]). The principle of finality, which has been described by this court as “an integral part of justice” (see Kho Jabing v Public Prosecutor [2016] 3 SLR 135 at [1]), requires nothing less. To be sure, the carrying into effect of a sentence of death will necessarily prevent a PACP from seeing through any pending proceedings in which he might be interested, including proceedings which have been brought by him (or on his behalf) and which may require his testimony. However, as PACPs stand in a very different position from other persons who have not lost their right to life by reason of a lawfully imposed death sentence, this cannot be regarded as intrinsically objectionable.

First, the reliance on Pannir seems misplaced, given that the context in which it was made was whether the MHA policy was objectionable for excluding non-State brought proceedings when it came to not scheduling death row prisoners' proceedings, and did not engage fully with what particular interests were at stake in proceedings brought by the prisoner.

To note, the Court's reference point in Pannir in making this finding was about the prisoner seeing through a proceeding brought by him where his testimony was needed, as the issue at hand in Pannir was his pending law society complaint against his former solicitor in respect of egregious collection of fees and refusal to represent Pannir – which ostensibly does not engage as directly with constitutional rights as Lingkesvaran's case.

Further, the reliance on Pannir in the present case does not sit well, in my view, with the finding echoed across various decisions that "[w]hen a prisoner has been sentenced to the death penalty and is to be deprived of his life, he does not necessarily lose his other legal rights" (AG v Datchinamurthy a/l Kataiah [2022] SGCA 46 at [1]).

Surely, the proper question to have been addressed is whether mistreatment in prison engages some (residual) constitutional or substantive right a prisoner on death row might have, having been deprived of the protections of the Prisons Act and Prison Regulations. Furhter, seen in this light, the objection from the 'principle of finality' also falls away in respect of fresh violations of a prisoners' (residual) rights unrelated to their conviction or sentence.

Second, beyond the statement above,Woo JAD did not fully engage with any of the substantive grounds raised by Lingkesvaran as to whether prison mistreatment does form an exceptional circumstance.

Indeed, Woo JAD had not addressed what actually amounts to 'exceptional circumstance' - this makes the finding that "it cannot be that every allegation of a breach of constitutional right...constitutes an exceptional circumstance" ring hollow. Does the argument of exceptional public interest, or that treatment in prison is central to the administration of justice, then get us any closer to an 'exceptional circumstance'? One cannot tell from the decision.

Third, Woo JAD placed undue weight on his concern for the circumvention of the relevant pending proceeding test. Whether a case is a relevant pending proceeding pertains to MHA's policy for scheduling executions. On the contrary, the Court's power to grant a stay of execution is surely grounded substantively on the nature of the rights at stake in the legal claim brought by the prisoner. These are quite separate issues, and the constitution and the rule of law surely trump policy.

Is exceptional circumstance now an impossible standard?

The crux of the issue of 'exceptional circumstance' in the eyes of the Court seems to be: when is the state's 'interest to execute' trumped by the nature of the claim, constitutional or otherwise, made by the person seeking a stay of execution.

Given the jurisprudence thus far, it's quite unclear what a principled application of the notion of 'exceptional circumstance' could possibly look like.

In all the relevant cases, the Applicants have cited public interest as a relevant ground for possibly meeting the requirement.

However, the point has not been adequately considered, beyond a brief statement in Pannir's 2nd stay application that: "any reference by the Court of Appeal to public interest [in Pannir's earlier case] is to the public interest in Singapore and not in any other country" (at [31] of Pannir Selvam v AG [2025] SGCA 47), and consequently, that Malaysian Police investigation and interview with Pannir that took place days before Pannir's scheduled execution was not an exceptional circumstance.

I pause to note that this distinction between public interest in Singapore and elsewhere is artificial, given that the whole point of the Certificate of Substantive Assistance system introduced in 2012 is precisely to disrupt the drug trade upstream, which inevitably means across the border.

Perhaps exceptional circumstance is logically difficult to define as the Court may not want to limit its discretion. But, with reference to Lingkesvaran's arguments, it is hard to imagine what else could fit the requirements of 'exceptional circumstance' if not for a serious, substantial allegation of prison mistreatment.

On the contrary, if the reasoning in Lingkesvaran's case seems to be learning towards saying that there is no exceptional circumstance because the case is drip-fed and seemingly filed solely for the purpose of delaying execution, it is still unclear why this finding is an adequate substitute for the examination of the substance of the mistreatment allegations and what rights it does engage, let alone the potential public interest involved. This brings us to the final issue.

Does 'delay' trump all other grounds for stay of execution?

At the end of the decision, Woo JAD seemingly conflates the 'reasonable prospect of success' test with the separate requirements of whether the application could not have been brought any earlier (and is therefore drip-fed and an abuse of process etc.), such that in the end, the veracity and severity of the mistreatment allegations seemed to not have even been placed on a weighing scale against any other relevant factors. I find this troubling.

To begin with, it is difficult to see that immediacy is a core component of the State's 'interest to execute', particularly where there is a significant allegation of ongoing rights violations. As the Court of Appeal stated in Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin v Attorney-General [2020] SGCA 122 at [47], the death sentence means that:

the eventual deprivation of the prisoner’s life would not be a violation of Art 9(1), provided that it is carried out in accordance with law. (emphasis added)

More importantly, in my own view, deference to the state's 'interest to execute' is one that goes against the fundamental principle that "all power has legal limits and the rule of law demands that the courts should be able to examine the exercise of discretionary power" (Chng Suan Tze v Minister of Home Affairs [1988] SGCA 16 at [86]).

The power to schedule and proceed with an execution in spite of serious and substantial allegation of rights allegations puts at risk the exercise of the Court's judicial function - which is to examine and hold to account violation of rights, and in doing so, uphold the Constitution (which is supreme).

Coda

Following the filing of Lingkesvaran's stay application on 9 Feb evening, the Prosecution was directed to file written submissions by 9am of 10 Feb. The oral hearing was called off around 1pm in the afternoon, and the decision handed down at around 6.30pm.

The brief decision, as this article has sought to point out, did not adequately work through some of the fundamental legal questions at the heart of Lingkesvaran's application. It did not do so because, as the practice has been in the past few years, there is a mysterious need to conclude proceedings before the scheduled execution date.

This need can only be rationally understood as prior deference to the state's interest to execute. But, as the maxim goes, "Justice hurried is justice buried."

And thus, the price we pay for the machinery of the death penalty marching onwards is the cherished notion of the rule of law. Above and beyond the mistreatment Lingkesvaran alleged he suffered in the care and custody of SPS and its officers, this too is the exceptional injustice.