Lawyers and a Virus Called SARS

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (‘SARS’) virus crept up on Singapore in February and only in March did we realise that a new and potentially deadly form of pneumonia was upon us. There was no known cure for this illness which was transmitted by close contact. By April, the nation was plunged into fear and panic. The usually bustling shopping centres were empty on weekends, movie screens were playing to vacant cinemas and even the most popular nightspots remained empty and silent.

A new fashion accessory on shirts and blouses soon blossomed — colourful stickers, which either recorded a date we were cleared to enter a building, or which recorded our bodily temperatures or simply declared, ‘I am cool’!

Masks and disinfectants became commonplace and were penned down on every household’s shopping list as a daily essential alongside toothbrush and toothpaste.

The Law Society recognised that in this time of crisis, we must, along with our brother medical professionals, step forward to help in any way possible.

‘SARS and the Law’ was thus conceived as a project of the Law Awareness Committee of the Law Society. For eight weeks, legal advice was given to the public arising from SARS related matters. This project took the form of answering queries sent in by the public to the Law Society. The answers, drafted in the form of a legal advice column, were published in the Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao and the English newspaper Today.

The Law Society wishes to thank our public relations consultants, Blackie McDonald, and of course Lianhe ZaoBao and Today for respectively giving their time and space for this project.

However, our special ‘thank you’ extends to our volunteers without whose contribution this project could not have succeeded:

We hope that this small contribution by the Bar in the battle against SARS has helped to tackle some of the problems faced by our nation.

Gokul Haridas
Law Society of Singapore