Mr Philip Jeyaretnam Joins The Public Service Commission

The President has appointed Mr Philip Antony Jeyaretnam as a member of the Public Service Commission (PSC) with effect from 24 November 2009, for a term of five years in the first instance.

Under the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, the PSC shall have a Chairman and not less than five and not more than 14 other members.  With the appointment of Mr Jeyaretnam, the PSC will have eleven members assisting the Chairman. The current Chairman is Mr Eddie Teo.

Mr Jeyaretnam, 45, who was appointed Senior Counsel in 2003, is a partner in Rodyk & Davidson LLP.  He graduated from Cambridge University, United Kingdom, in 1986, was admitted to the English Bar in 1987 and the Singapore Bar a year later.   In 1990/91 he held a Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard Law School and the University of Iowa.

He is a Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators, a member of the Regional Panel of Arbitrators, Singapore International Arbitration Centre and an adjudicator with the Singapore Mediation Centre. He was the President of the Law Society of Singapore from 2004 to 2007, and was the founding chairman of the Society of Construction Law, Singapore, holding that office from 2002 to 2004.  

He is also an adjunct professor teaching construction law in the National University of Singapore and is a Board member of the Singapore Tourism Board and of the Singapore University of Technology and Design.  He is Chairman of the Board of the Theatre Training and Research Space Ltd (formerly part of Practice Performing Arts Centre Ltd), a not-for-profit theatre school, founded by the late Kuo Pao Kun. 

Mr Jeyaretnam is an award-winning writer and received the Young Artist Award in 1993, the Montblanc-NUS Centre for the Arts Literary Award in 1997 and the Southeast Asia Write Award in 2003.  He was a member of Council for the National Arts Council from 2000 to 2008, and chaired the steering committees for the Singapore Writers’ Festivals 2007 and 2009.

Mr Jeyaretnam is married with three children.