Quentin Loh Sze-On is a

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

an judge who sits on the

High Court of Singapore The High Court of Singapore is the lower division of the Supreme Court of Singapore, the upper division being the Court of Appeal of Singapore, Court of Appeal. The High Court consists of the Chief Justice of Singapore, chief justice and the ju ...

and the

Supreme Court of Fiji The Supreme Court of Fiji is one of three courts originally established in Chapter 9 of the 1997 Constitution of Fiji, the others being the High Court and the Court of Appeal. In the current Constitution of Fiji, the Supreme Court is declar ...

Legal career

In 1978, Loh founded the Cooma, Lau & Loh legal team and became Managing Partner. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 1999. He moved to the Executive Committee of Rajah & Tann in 2001, and became Deputy Managing Partner in 2003. He also served as Director of a

dispute resolution Dispute resolution or dispute settlement is the process of resolving disputes between parties. The term ''dispute resolution'' is '' conflict resolution'' through legal means. Prominent venues for dispute settlement in international law incl ...

complex until 2009.

Supreme Court career

Loh was first appointed to the

Supreme Court of Singapore The Supreme Court of Singapore is a set of courts in Singapore, comprising the Court of Appeal and the High Court. It hears both civil and criminal matters. The Court of Appeal hears both civil and criminal appeals from the High Court. The C ...

as a Judicial Commissioner on 1 September 2009. On 1 June 2010, he was elevated to the position of High Court Judge. In December 2017, his term was extended by three years by president

Halimah Yacob Halimah binte Yacob (born 23 August 1954) is a Singaporean politician and lawyer who held the office of the eighth president of Singapore from 2017 to 2023, making her the first woman to serve in this role. A former member of Singapore's long ...

, and he was sworn in on 4 January 2018. He has occasionally sat on the

Court of Appeal of Singapore The Court of Appeal of Singapore is the highest court in the judicial system of Singapore. It is the upper division of the Supreme Court of Singapore, the lower being the High Court (which since 2021 has itself been sub-divided into a Gener ...

during periods with a high caseload. Loh is in charge of the

Singapore International Commercial Court The Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC) was established on 5 January 2015. The idea to create the SICC was mooted by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon at the Opening of Legal Year 2013, with a key feature being the internationalisation of ...

(SICC), and chairs both the SICC Development Committee and the SICC Rules Committee. He also chairs the Personal Injury (Claims Assessment) Review Committee and the Professional Training of Lawyers group. During the SICC's first case in November 2015, he said: As a judge, he specialises in law relating to construction, commercial litigation, and domestic and international arbitration.

Notable judgements

On the topic of same sex activity in Singapore, Loh was part of the team which rejected a constitutional challenge to the law which criminalizes such acts, arguing that it should be a matter for the legislature and not the courts. Loh was responsible for convicting

Alan Shadrake Alan Shadrake (born mid-1934) is a British author and former journalist, who was convicted in Singapore in 2010 of contempt of court for Offence of scandalizing the court in Singapore, scandalising the Singapore judicial system, through his pub ...

in the case of '' Shadrake v Attorney-General'' in 2011. Shadrake had been charged with the

offence of scandalizing the court in Singapore In Singapore, the offence of scandalizing the court is committed when a person performs any act or publishes any writing that is calculated to bring a court or a judge of the court into contempt, or to lower their authority. An act or statemen ...

with his book ''Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock''. Loh clarified and contextualized the law throughout the case and judgement.

Supreme Court of Fiji

On 15 August 2018, Loh was appointed to the non-resident panel of the

for three years. In this position, he sits alongside the Supreme Court Judges of Fiji to hear civil and commercial cases for a period of three weeks per year. The move was seen by Chief Justice

Sundaresh Menon Sundaresh Menon (born 26 February 1962) is a Singaporean lawyer and judge who has served as the fourth Chief Justice of Singapore since 2012 after being appointed by president Tony Tan. He is the first Singapore-born Chief Justice and the secon ...

as "contributing to the development of the

rule of law The essence of the rule of law is that all people and institutions within a Body politic, political body are subject to the same laws. This concept is sometimes stated simply as "no one is above the law" or "all are equal before the law". Acco ...

internationally".

Other work

On 30 September 2015, Loh delivered the 27th Annual Lecture of the '' Singapore Law Review''. His lecture, "The Singapore International Commercial Court: Entrenching Singapore’s Position as a Hub for Dispute Resolution", discussed the role and importance of the SICC and dispute resolution in general.

Selected works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loh, Quentin Year of birth unknown Judges of the Supreme Court of Singapore Expatriate judges on the courts of Fiji Singaporean Senior Counsel Living people Year of birth missing (living people)