JUDICIAL COMMITTEE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

5.52 p.m.

Mr Barker: Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Bill seeks to amend section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1966, which provides that applications for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council shall be made to the Appellate Court within six weeks from the date on which the decision appealed against was given or within such further time as may be allowed by the Appellate Court.

The Rules Committee set up under the provisions of the Courts of Judicature Act, 1964, considered that these provisions under section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1966, should be amended to provide the normal period for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to be more than six weeks, as at present provided, which is too short a time for practitioners to consider whether to take the matter further on appeal to the Judicial Committee, a step which would not ordinarily be taken without considerable deliberation. The Committee therefore recommended, and the Government accepted, that this subsection be amended to provide for the period within which to apply for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to be three months instead. And in cases where complicated issues have to be considered, the parties should not he tied down even to this extended period of three months provided always they are able to satisfy the Appellate Court to exercise its discretion in the appellant's favour. Such an extension of period would, however, be given only in special circumstances, as has been made clear in the Bill, and that above all the Appellate Court considers it reasonable to do so after taking into consideration all the circumstances in the case.

The amendment is, in substance, a return to the position we were in before Malaysia when under section 36, subsection (2) of the Courts Ordinance, which is now repealed, leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee could be made within six months from the date of the decision appealed against. It must, most obviously, have been felt when the period was reduced to six weeks that the required period of six months was too long and had the effect of delaying the final prosecution of an appeal.

Sir, the United Kingdom Government have been consulted on this amendment and they have not expressed any views to the contrary. Practitioners in Singapore who are behind this move to amend the provisions of section 4 of the Act have expressed their support for this Bill.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

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

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. -[Mr Barker]

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read Third time and passed.