JUDGES' REMUNERATION (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.30 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr Tang See Chim): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The Salaries Commission recommended that the salaries of Puisne Judges should be considered in relation to the salaries of the civil service in Singapore and that the former relationship between the salaries of the Judges and the Permanent Secretaries should be restored.

The Commission also suggested that if the recommendation regarding the salaries of Puisne Judges is accepted, then the emoluments of, inter alia, the Chief Justice should also be reviewed.

With the introduction of Superscale 'B' (all-in salary of $2,700 a month) and Superscale 'A' (all-in $3,000 a month) for Permanent Secretaries on a personal-to-holder basis, it was decided that a comparable revision of the salaries of the Chief Justice and Puisne Judges be effected.

Accordingly, the salary of the Chief Justice has been revised from $2,570 a month (basic) to $3,500 a month (consolidated) and for the Puisne Judges from $2,100 a month (basic) to $2,700 a month (consolidated). This revision was effected retrospectively from 1st January, 1969, administratively.

To give legal effect to this revision, it is necessary for the Judges' Remuneration Act, 1963, of Malaysia to be amended. This Bill seeks to do just that.

Mr Speaker, 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 Tang See Chim].

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