Enshrined in law in 1975, a decade after the island split from Malaysia and became an independent state, the penalty can see people sentenced to hang for drug trafficking, murder or firearms offenses, among other crimes. Executions have often involved trafficking under the Misuse of Drugs Act, with offenses measured in grams.
Those executed have included people from low-income backgrounds and foreign nationals who are sometimes not fluent in English, according to human rights advocates such as Amnesty International and the International Drug Policy Consortium.
Capital punishment is an issue the judiciary is confronting again after family members of 3 executed prisoners and several activists filed a constitutional challenge to Singapore’s death penalty for drug offenses. They argue that a sentence of death violates Article 9’s right to life, Article 12’s guarantee of equal protection and, finally, Article 93’s vesting of judicial power in the courts. The case was heard in closed chambers on Dec. 3. The Ministry of Home Affairs said it is unable to comment as the case is presently before the courts.
Afterward, I checked in with Kirsten Han of the Transformative Justice Collective, one of the applicants, to see how it went. With written submissions already filed, the group of 7 (4 activists and the sisters of 3 Singaporeans who have been executed) presented oral arguments and responded to points raised by lawyers from the Attorney-General’s Chambers. The judge issued no ruling, and with courts slowing down for the year-end holidays, any decision may not arrive until early 2026.
Singapore’s system devalues people to the point where some are determined to be disposable.
That offers little comfort to the families of the 17 people executed in Singapore this year alone, the highest number since 2003. The government maintains that its tough drug laws are a powerful deterrent, and indeed, crime and drug incidence remain extremely low. Singapore is, by many measures, one of the safest places in the world. But executions have picked up at a moment when many countries are moving in the opposite direction, scrapping mandatory death penalties for drug crimes.
From Han’s perspective, Singapore’s system “does not recognize human beings with all their struggles and flaws and complexities; it is a system that devalues people to the point where some are determined to be disposable.” That, she says, is why the Transformative Justice Collective brought the constitutional challenge, and why it’s “so important for all of us as citizens to reflect upon what this says about our society, our country, and us as a people.”
Source: Bloomberg News, Katrina Nicholas, December 6, 2025
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde