EVIDENCE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Third Reading read.

3.01 p.m.

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

Sir, the Evidence (Amendment) Bill was committed to a Select Committee on the 19th August last year. The Committee received four written representations and heard oral evidence from representatives of the Workers' Party and those of the Law Society of Singapore. The Report of the Committee was published and presented to this House on 24th June, 1976 as Paper ParI. 5 of 1976. The Bill as set out in the Report and now tabled before this House contains amendments made to the original Bill by the Committee.

The recommendation of the Law Society, that the safeguards provided by subsection (2) of the existing section 132 of the Evidence Act should also be made applicable to the new subsection which the Bill proposed to add to the said section 132, has been accepted. A new subsection (6) for section 132 has accordingly been inserted in clause 7 of the Bill. This new subsection will ensure that no answer which an accused or his spouse is compelled to give shall -

(a) expose the accused to any proceedings for some other offence or for the recovery of a penalty, or be proved against him in any such proceedings; or

(b) expose the spouse to any proceedings for an offence or for the recovery of a penalty, or be proved against the spouse in any such proceedings.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Third time and passed.