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SINGAPORE – Former chief justice Yong Pung How, who implemented rigorous reforms to transform the Singapore court system into a model of efficiency, died on Thursday (Jan 9) morning, the Supreme Court has confirmed.
He was 93.
Mr Yong’s work in the legal field started as early as 1953, when he was appointed by the Singapore Government as arbitrator to resolve a dispute between the Government and a union. The union was represented by a young lawyer, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who would go on to become the country’s prime minister in 1959.
Mr Yong was admitted to the Bar in 1964 and became a senior partner with the law firm of Shook Lin and Bok, until 1970. He then went into merchant banking and finance, ending up as chairman and chief executive of OCBC Bank.
On a secondment from OCBC Bank from 1981 to 1983, Mr Yong helped form the Government Investment Corporation, which manages Singapore’s foreign reserves, and became its managing director. He later became the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
When he took the helm at the judiciary in September 1990, there was a backlog of more than 2,000 cases.
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