A distinguished administrator, professor and lawyer, best known for his hand in drafting the Internal Security Act (ISA) and Malaya’s Federal Constitution, has passed away. Professor Reginald Hugh Hickling, always affectionately known to those who knew him as Hugh, died on February 11 in Worchestershire, Britain at the age of 86. But as many would attest, he lived a life that few could compare with.

Prof. Hickling’s respect for the law was ingrained at a young age. Born in Derby, England in 1920 to a police officer, he soon became the youngest then to have qualified for the LL.B from Nottingham University. He was also seen to be a loyal and dutiful individual, signing up for the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves when World War II broke out. His wartime experiences included serving with a PQ17 on a corvette where his convoy was badly mutilated and Hickling was upset that they could not stop to pick up the survivors in the water. He later commanded a Landing Craft Tank at Sword Beach during the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

Prof. Hickling resumed his legal career post-war and served in various offices in Asia. At the time of Malayan independence, he was Malaya’s first Parliamentary draftsman and Commissioner of Law Revision, helping to draft the Malayan Constitution, the Merdeka declaration and the National Land Code. Some of us may also remember him as a visiting professor to the Faculty of Law at the then-University of Singapore during the periods of 1974-6 and 1978-80. It is also fitting to recall, 21 years down the road, that the kind professor delivered the 3rd Singapore Law Review Lecture in 1986 on “Breaking the apron strings”. Above all, Prof. Hickling was a warm, conscientious man with a wonderful sense of humour and humility. “He had a fantastic sense of humour,” recalled Dr. Mehrun Siraj, his student at the London School of Oriental and African Studies in the early 1970s. “He would tell these wonderful stories and then give out a hearty laugh, sort of a guffaw. Hickling was able to laugh at himself.” Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi, who shared his love of constitutional law, described Prof. Hickling as more than just a legal scholar but also a “philosopher and a very good man.”

He was often seen to carry an age-worn book containing his handwritten collection of fascinating quips, phrase and poems – amongst them even simple child’s poems. In this, Prof. Hickling showed despite all the knowledge and wealth we might acquire, we should never forget the simple things in life.

And that he never did. His former student Sazlin Suhaila Daud recalled how at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in the 1990s, he would drive up in a “decrepit light-metallic green 1970s-80s Peugeot and after a few years, resorted instead to travelling by public transport, which 99% of the time meant rickety, overcrowded public buses and not taxis.”

Prof. Hickling was also a prolific writer, having numerous titles to his name. Some were, naturally, books on law, while others were novels including Crimson Sun over Borneo, about the Japanese invasion of South-East Asia, Festival of Hungry Ghosts, about the lives of British expatriates engaged in Singapore, and The Lotus-eaters, which is set in a fictitious law faculty in Malaysia.

In Memoir of a Wayward Lawyer, his autobiography published in 2000, Prof. Hickling described his time in the law as a “splendid journey” and that he finally understood the law as part of “man’s efforts to live harmoniously in society”. He also affords a striking quip that lets us a little into the mind and philosophy of this great man – “Until the world knows peace, law is essential.”

A personal friend and former colleague of his once said, “Those of us who lived under his humble legacy learnt to care for what is most valuable in our common lives.” Such was the insatiable impact that Hugh had on those who knew him and such was his legend.

Jeth Lee is a second year law undergraduate and the Juris Editor. — Juris Illuminae Vol. 3 Issue 5 (March/April 2007)