K. Shanmugam


Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam , better known as K. Shanmugam, is a Singaporean politician and former lawyer. A member of the governing People's Action Party, he has been the Minister for Law since May 2008 and the Minister for Home Affairs since October 2015, a post which he had briefly served from November 2010 to May 2011. He previously served as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from May 2011 to September 2015. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1988 representing the Sembawang Group Representation Constituency and the Nee Soon Group Representation Constituency, serving the Chong Pang ward in both constituencies.

Education

Shanmugam was educated in Raffles Institution from 1972 to 1977 before he went on to read law at the National University of Singapore's Faculty of Law, where he graduated at the top of his class with a LL.B. in 1984.

Early career

After being admitted to the Singapore Bar as an advocate and solicitor in 1985, Shanmugam went into private practice and became a Senior Partner and Head of Litigation and Dispute Resolution at the Singaporean law firm Allen & Gledhill.
Shanmugam had a successful practice and was consistently recognised in various international publications as one of the top litigation, arbitration and insolvency counsel in Asia. While he was in private practice, he regularly handled trial work in major corporate, commercial, insolvency disputes for private and public listed companies, major international and Singaporean banking and financial institutions, multinational corporations and professional practices.
In 1998, Shanmugam became one of the youngest lawyers to be appointed a Senior Counsel of the Supreme Court at the age of 38.
At the age of 29, Shanmugam became a Member of Parliament in 1988 when he was elected as a member for the Group Representation Constituency of Sembawang.

Minister for Law (since 2008)

Shanmugam served as an MP and continued to practise law until 2008, when he was brought into the Cabinet to replace S. Jayakumar as Minister for Law. He was concurrently made the Second Minister for Home Affairs in 2008, and succeeded Wong Kan Seng as Minister for Home Affairs in 2010.
Following the 2011 general election, Shanmugam relinquished his portfolio as Minister for Home Affairs and was made the Minister for Foreign Affairs, while continuing to serve as Minister for Law. As of 2015, Shanmugam remains as a Member of Parliament serving Chong Pang.
Following Shanmugam's remarks on changes to the qualifying criteria for Singapore's elected presidency, he was criticized by former presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock for pre-empting the legislative process and the Presidential Elections Committee, which decides the eligibility of candidates for the Singapore presidential elections.
In February 2018, Shanmugam said that Singapore would change its criminal breach of trust laws to address concerns that company directors and key officers of charities would face less harsh maximum punishments for CBT offences than their employees.
Shanmugam was a member of the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods, where he questioned Simon Milner, Facebook's Vice President of Public Policy for Asia-Pacific, about the misuse of online data by Cambridge Analytica.

Other appointments

Shanmugam served on the board of directors for several companies before his appointment to the Singapore Cabinet.

Directorships

A part of the Tamil diaspora, Shanmugam has been married to clinical child psychologist Seetha Subbiah since 2008. He was previously married to Jothie Rajah, a legal academic and daughter of former Judicial Commissioner K. S. Rajah.