Singapore forms legal team to respond to Malaysia's application to revise Pedra Branca judgement

SINGAPORE has formed a legal team to respond to Malaysia's application and documentation to revise a judgement that awarded the island of Pedra Branca to the city-state.

The team includes Attorney-General Lucien Wong, Professor S Jayakumar, Professor Tommy Koh and former chief justice Chan Sek Keong, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in a release on Friday night.

This comes after Malaysia said earlier on Friday that it has filed an application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to review a judgement made in May 2008 that awarded Pedra Branca to Singapore after making "discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor".

The MFA said that Malaysia had informed Singapore of this application, and "Singapore is studying Malaysia's application and documentation closely".

It added that the 2008 judgement was "final, binding and without appeal".

It also noted that under Article 61 of the Statute of the ICJ, an application for revision of a judgement may be made only when it is based upon the discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, and which was, when the judgement was given, unknown to the Court and the party claiming revision.

"Such an application must be made within ten years of the date of the judgment, and at latest within six months of the discovery of the new fact," said the ministry.