as usurping judicial power or being contrary to the rule of law. The rule of law had not been abolished by legislation, as Parliament had done no more than to enact the rule of law relating to judicial review. The legislation did not order the court to decide a case in a particular way or to dismiss it – the court was left to deal with the case on the basis of the amendments. Court of Appeal judgment On appeal to the Court of Appeal, Teo made primarily the same arguments that had been raised before the High Court. Notably, regarding the freezing of common law via the statute, the Court of Appeal observed that the language of section 8B(1) of the ISA was plain and unambiguous, and excluded the application of any law in any Commonwealth country "before, on or after" 13 July 1971, the date of the decision of Lee Mau Seng. It reinstated Lee Mau Seng as "the applicable and declared law governing judicial review" under the ISA. The appeal was dismissed. Significance of the decisions Exclusion of judicial review The Teo Soh Lung decisions cannot be read apart from Chng Suan Tze and the series of legislative and constitutional amendments made by Parliament. The amendments had the effect of ousting review by the Judiciary and the Privy Council in situations of preventive detention. Chng Suan Tze has been dubbed the "single most important constitutional decision in the Singaporean nation". It declared that the idea of any official power being non-justiciable is contrary to the Constitution. The Court's endorsement of the objective standard of review meant that judges could examine whether the Executive's action was in fact based on national security considerations, as well as whether such action fell within the scope of section 8(1) of the ISA. Chng Suan Tze departed from decades of the court abiding by the policy of non-justiciability, and held that "the notion of a subjective or unfettered discretion is contrary to the rule of law. All power has legal limits and the rule of law demands that the courts should be able to examine the exercise of discretionary power." It declared that the idea of any official power being non-justiciable violated equality before the law and equal protection of the law because a limitless power is a licence for the Executive to take arbitrary action. Following the amendments to the Constitution