SINGAPORE - In a landmark ruling last year involving a drug trafficker who was sentenced to hang, the top court held that prosecutors are duty-bound to disclose statements of material witnesses who are not called by the prosecution, regardless of whether their statements support or undermine the case for the defence.

Writing about the impact of the case in the Singapore Academy of Law's SAL Practitioner earlier this month, two lawyers argued that the Court of Appeal's ruling "effectively removed prosecutorial oversight over what was or was not helpful to the defence".