LEGAL AID AND ADVICE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.07 p.m.

Mr Braga (on behalf of the Minister for Labour and Welfare, Dr Lim Yew Hock): Mr Speaker, Sir, I rise to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Hon. Members will recall that when the Legal Aid and Advice Ordinance was passed in June 1956, certain objections to the measure were raised by the Singapore Bar Committee. Discussions with the Bar Committee resulted in ironing out areas of disagreement. This Bill now seeks to give effect to the recommendations made by the Bar Committee which have been accepted by the Government.

One of the Bar Committee's recommendations was that in the working of the scheme, some measure of supervision should be exercised by the legal profession, although the Committee conceded that the service must be controlled and administered by the Government. This point is met in clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill which respectively alters section 11 and amends section 12 of the Legal Aid and Advice Ordinance, 1956. It is now made incumbent on the Director of Legal Aid that all applications for legal aid should be approved by a Board consisting of the Director of Legal Aid and not less than two advocates and solicitors from the panel maintained by the Director of Legal Aid.

In amending the provisos to section 16 and subsection (1) of section 17 respectively of the Legal Aid and Advice Ordinance, 1956, clauses 4 and 5 give effect to the Bar Committee's recommendation that an aided person should have the right to have his legal affairs handled by a lawyer of his own choice.

With regard to the vexed question of fees payable to lawyers working under the scheme, the Minister has power under section 28 of the Legal Aid and Advice Ordinance, 1956, to make regulations relating to fees and no amendment to the Ordinance is therefore necessary.

The Bar Committee has decided to issue no directive to members of the Bar with regard to participation in the scheme, and each member is therefore free to join the panel under section 4 of the Ordinance as he thinks fit. I understand that several members of the Bar have expressed their willingness to participate in the scheme.

Mr Speaker, Sir, there is a minor amendment that I propose to make, in page 3, line 14, the words "the appropriate panel" should not be deleted from the principal Ordinance. The erroneous insertion was only discovered after the Bill was printed.

Mr Speaker: The appropriate time to amend will be in Committee.

Mr Braga: Yes, Sir. Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

3.09 p.m.

Mr Lim Choon Mong (Serangoon): Mr Speaker, Sir, with regard to this Bill to assist those people who need legal aid, I have in recent times, a number of people coming to see me regarding this. They have been very unfortunate in having lawyers thrust on to them, and they have come along to see me complaining that their cases have never been handled properly. In one case, they informed me that the lawyer concerned never interviewed them. They waited until the case came up before the court and then at that time started dealing with his client, asking him a few questions, and in most cases the people who received legal aid were really receiving a very shabby form of aid. Perhaps it may be that complaints of this type may be worth the Bar Committee's while to look into, but I certainly feel that if a person receiving aid has a choice of his lawyer it will help tremendously.

Furthermore, I would say that if lawyers who are rendering aid in such cases are found to be wanting not only by one person but by many persons, then it means that the work has not been properly done and he might properly come off the schedule.

I always note that lawyers always talk about fees and it is important to them as to how much money they would get out of a case. The amount of legal assistance seems to be dependent on the amount of money received. Of course I have heard of famous cases where people are charged sums of three figures and over and lawyers refusing to handle cases, although deserving because all that the client can pay is a few hundred dollars. I think one former Member of the Assembly even said that his practice brought him well over $10,000 a month. What I am thinking about is so many of these lawyers have been talking about Socialism and wanting to help the poor people and today even the Bar Committee talks about fees. It pains me to see that those who talk loudest about helping the poor people are actually the people who try to ask, `How much shall we get for our service?'.

3.12 p.m.

Mr R. C. H. Lim (Nominated): Mr Speaker, Sir, as a member of the legal profession, I would like to assure my friend the Member for Serangoon that in my experience of more than 25 years of the Bar in Singapore, no member of the Bar, having been assigned to look after the case of a pauper, has ever failed in his duty. I would like to assure this. House that I believe that the information given to him must be entirely in correct.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole Assembly.

Assembly immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. [Mr Braga.]

Bill considered in Committee.

3.14 p.m.

[Mr SPEAKER in the Chair]

Clauses 1 to 4 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5-

Mr Braga: Mr Chairman, I move an amendment to clause 5 of the Bill,

In page 3, line 14, to leave out "the appropriate panel".

This was an erroneous insertion and, as I said it was discovered only when the Bill had been printed. The deletion of these words from the original Ordinance would make the section meaningless. The section should now read-

"17.-(1) Where a legal aid certificate is granted pursuant to section 11 or 12 of this Ordinance the Director of Legal Aid may act for the aided person or may assign a solicitor to be selected by the aided person, if he so desires, or otherwise by the Director from the appropriate panel maintained pursuant to section 4 of this Ordinance ...".

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Schedule ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, with an Amendment; read the Third time and passed.