REVISED EDITIONS OF THE LAWS (ANNUAL SUPPLEMENTS) (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.02 p.m.

The Minister for Law and National Development (Mr E. W. Barker): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

This is a formal Bill, the object of which is to exclude the 1970 Annual Supplement to the Laws of Singapore to be printed this year from the rule laid down in section 5 (1) (a) of the Revised Editions of the Laws (Annual Supplements) Act. The rule is to the effect that each Annual Supplement shall contain all the Acts passed between 1st January and 31st December of the year immediately preceding the date of issue. However, the 1970 Revised Edition of Acts, an eight-volume work containing the Statutes of Singapore, includes the Acts passed by Parliament in 1970 other than 14 Acts passed on the 30th December, 1970, which were not brought into operation in 1970. The 1970 Annual Supplement to be issued this year is to contain all the Acts so omitted from the 1970 Revised Edition.

This Bill can, therefore, be said to be necessitated by the situation created by the 1970 Revised Edition of Acts which absorbed the first 48 of the 62 Acts passed in 1970 but not the Acts numbered 49 to 62 which were passed on 30th December last year. Having regard to the rule that every Annual Supplement shall contain all the Acts passed in the preceding year, an amending Act becomes necessary to enable the Annual Supplement, which is to be printed in 1971, to consist of only those Acts passed by Parliament in 1970 and not included in the Revised Edition of Acts, 1970.

A parallel situation existed when the 1955 Revised Edition of the Laws of Singapore was issued. An adjustment was also necessary in respect of that Edition, as may be seen by a perusal of section 5 (2) of the principal Act.

Normalcy in the publication of Annual Supplements will be restored next year when all the Acts passed from 1st January to 31st December of this year will, in accordance with the rule I have just cited, be contained in the Annual Supplement to be printed in 1972.

Sir, it would not be inappropriate for me to conclude with a few remarks on the 1970 Revised Edition of Acts. It is the eighth Revised Edition since the publication of the first edition in 1886. The last Revised Edition was issued 16 years ago in 1955 and was known as "The Laws of the Colony of Singapore". The 1970 Revised Edition has taken about four years to complete and is the first Revised Edition to be published since Singapore attained independence. It amends, it consolidates, and it brings up to date the laws in force in independent Singapore and enables each piece of legislation to be read as a clear, connected and completed entity and will indeed be a boon to the Bench, the Bar, the Magistrates in the Subordinate Courts, officers in the Legal Service, law students, Government officers, and others concerned with the administration of justice, and, in fact, anyone who has occasion to look up the law on any subject. All the eight volumes of the present Edition have already been issued and are in force.

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 a Third time and passed.