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SINGAPORE'S lower courts may have been placed high in international rankings, but what matters is the quality of justice people here receive, said the head of its judiciary.
Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong shared the sentiment in a rare interview published in the annual report of the Subordinate Courts, which was released on Friday.
Last year, two respected reports ranked Singapore among the top countries in the world for the quality of its legal system and its adherence to the rule of law.
However, the CJ noted that while rankings are an important feather in Singapore's cap, they should not detract from what matters.
'We should not allow them to dominate and overwhelm our own assessment of the quality of justice that we administer to our people,' he said.
The rankings were limited to certain aspects of justice, such as how fast litigants can get a judgement from the courts and enforce them, as in cases of debt recovery and bankruptcy.
'These ranking surveys serve a useful purpose in alerting foreign investors to the potential strengths and weaknesses of the judicial or legal systems of the countries,' he said.
Still, if the results of the appeals before the High Court were a measure of the quality of justice, the Subordinate Courts have done 'very well', he said.
The CJ noted that last year, only about two per cent of all the decisions in trials heard before the Subordinate Courts were reversed on appeal.
In a wide-ranging interview, which touched on what a good judge should be and the role of the Subordinate Courts in the judicial system, the CJ also repeated his call for greater access to justice.
Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.
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