This chapter examines the beginnings of the use of ad hominem detention laws in West Africa, in an era during which Britain sought to expand its influence over areas in which the nature of its jurisdiction was often uncertain or contested. In the 1860s and 1870s, a number of African leaders were detained without any lawful authority, at the behest of local officials. In 1881, the Colonial Office began to insist that legal mandates for such detentions were necessary, in the form of ordinances. A raft of such ordinances followed. They were used for a number of purposes: in Sierra Leone, they were used to deal with African leaders who attacked areas under British protection, or engaged in local wars. In the Gold Coast, they were used for political purposes, notably to deal with agitators who threatened to unsettle British policy towards Asante. Detention by means of ordinance was used not only where the nature of British jurisdiction was in doubt, but also where there were doubts over whether convictions could be secured of those over whom there was jurisdiction. With little political pressure in the metropolis to counter such policy, detention by ordinance became routine.

When confronted in the late 1980s with a judicial decision that sought to expand the scope of judicial review over the Executive’s power to detain individuals without trial, the Singapore government rapidly enacted statutory and constitutional amendments that specifically overturned that judicial decision. This Chapter revisits this notorious episode and argues that the widespread criticisms levied on the reactions of the Singapore government are misplaced. As compared to sanctions against judges and direct executive interventions interferences with the judiciary by other authoritarian regimes in response to adverse judicial outcomes, the use of statutory and constitutional amendments to negate objectionable judicial decisions poses the least harm to the integrity and independence of the judicial institution. More fundamentally, the otherwise legitimate objections to authoritarianism should not distract from the fact that political mobilization to effect statutory and constitutional amendments is precisely the proper action that political actors should undertake in a liberal democracy that duly respects constitutionalism/rule of law. This Chapter argues that whether in terms of maintaining the best authoritarian rule from the perspective of authoritarian regime, or facilitating the eventual transition to the ideal of liberal democratic constitutionalism, the episode should be quietly celebrated.