STATUTES (MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs (Prof. S. Jayakumar): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Section 5(1) of the Land Acquisition Act (Cap. 272) provides that whenever any particular land is needed -

(a) for any public purpose;

(b) by any person, corporation or statutory board, for any work or an undertaking which, in the opinion of the Minister, is of public benefit or of public utility or in the public interest; or

(c) for any residential, commercial or industrial purposes, the President may, by notification published in the Gazette, declare the land to be required for the purpose specified in the notification.

Section 21(l) of the Port of Singapore Authority Act (Cap. 173) provides that where any immovable property, not being State land, is needed for the purposes of the Authority and cannot be acquired by agreement, the Authority may request, and the President may, if he thinks fit, direct the acquisition of such property in accordance with the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act.

In two recent cases before the High Court, it was argued on behalf of the landowners that the words "and cannot be acquired by agreement" impose a condition precedent to acquisition, i.e. prior negotiations with the landowners must be complied with before the Authority can request the President to acquire the lands.

The High Court rejected this argument and held that the words were too oblique and wholly inadequate if they were intended to impose such a condition on the Authority. The Court held that the provision merely requires the Authority to satisfy the President that the lands were needed for the purposes of the Authority and could not be acquired by agreement. Whether the lands in question can or cannot be acquired by agreement is exclusively a matter between the Authority and the President in the course of public administration. The effect of the High Court decision is, therefore, to affirm that section 21(l) does not impose an obligation on the Authority to enter into prior negotiations with the landowners. It follows that landowners do not have a corresponding right to compel the Authority to enter into prior negotiations.

The point raised in the litigation is undoubtedly a technical one. Although the High Court has construed section 21 (1) in a manner which is in accord with its real intention, it is desirable that there should not be any further doubt on this matter as the Acts incorporating several other statutory bodies (set out in the Schedule to this Bill) contain a similar provision.

The Bill seeks to amend all those Acts by removing those words in the various statutory provisions which may give rise to the element of uncertainty. The Bill also ensures that no previous compulsory acquisitions of lands will be questioned on the ground that there were no prior negotiations or attempts at entering into agreement with landowners. This is necessary in the public interest.

This Bill is in conformity with the legal position as declared by the High Court. I should like to stress that the Bill does not in any way affect the existing rights which are accorded to landowners under the Land Acquisition Act. It makes clear beyond any doubt what is, and has always been, the legal position.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, this Bill before the House seeks to do two things. If I may first take the second thing that it seeks to do which is provided by clause 3. It seeks to shut out any person whose land has been acquired before the commencement of this Bill by any of the statutory boards mentioned in the Schedule from challenging the acquisition before the courts on the ground that the statutory board in question had not complied with a provision in the Act. This, as the Minister has stated, was done in the two cases that were brought up in the High Court. In the result, the court decided that what the Port of Singapore Authority did in the particular instance was in accordance with the law.

But that is not the end of the matter, Mr Speaker, Sir, because there is provided in the judicial machinery a right of appeal from the High Court to the Court of Appeal and from the Court of Appeal to the Privy Council if the party which is dissatisfied with the judgment wishes to take it up with the Privy Council. I understand that, in the particular cases that were referred to by the Hon. Minister, one of the parties lodged a notice of appeal against the decision of the High Court and the appeal was pending before the Court of Appeal. Before the appeal could be heard, this Bill was introduced in Parliament on 3rd December last year. And I understand that the party has decided to withdraw the appeal.

What this Bill seeks to do is to grant immunity from legal process to any of the statutory boards specified in the Schedule from any person who might wish to test the acquisition of his property by the statutory board in question by recourse to the courts. His complaint that the statutory board had not complied with the requisite provision in the law before acquiring the property can no longer be entertained by the court. So the citizen is left without any right where, before the passing of the Bill, there was a right in him to question the acquisition of his property by any one of the specified statutory boards. This right, which is a right which he thought was given to him under the law, is taken away now by this Bill which seeks to shut out any recourse to the courts by any property owner whose property has been acquired by any of the statutory boards specified in the Act. It is for that reason that I consider that this Bill is thoroughly objectionable. It interferes with a right that the citizen possessed before the commencement of this Bill. I am, of course, aware that the High Court has declared in the particular instances that there was no such right in the property owner to require the statutory board to enter into negotiation with him. But as I have said, Sir, the matter did not end there. It is always open to somebody else now to challenge the acquisition of his property in the High Court relying on this very same ground and to take it right up, as I have said, from the High Court to the Court of Appeal or, still further than that, to the Privy Council.

Now, why is this right of the citizen being taken away from him? Is there any particular reason why it should be taken away? A citizen has a right to expect that if he once sets the judicial machinery in motion, he would be allowed to exhaust the whole of the judicial machinery and that his right to do so is not taken away from him at any stage during the proceedings. And yet this is what this Bill has done in the cases before the High Court.

This Bill is retroactive in that sense. It seeks to alter a situation that had existed in the past prior to the introduction of this Bill, and I do not have to remind the Hon. Minister of State and the other legal Members of this House that retroactive legislation has been considered to be most undesirable and should not be resorted to unless it is absolutely necessary. But this is what this Bill seeks to do.

We have heard in this House, Mr Speaker, Sir, that this Government would not allow the law, the rules, to be bent for anyone. The Prime Minister, at the last sitting on the 3rd December, 1982, in reply to my question to him on whether he would direct the Ministries to give detailed answers when they reject any application from a citizen, said the rules were clear enough. He said, "What the Member does not understand is that the rules cannot be bent for anyone." And today we heard from the Minister of State for National Development again that I was here to ask that rules be bent. I am not here to ask that the law be bent or that rules be bent for anyone.

But I do think I am entitled to protest at what is happening or what is sought to be done by this Bill. Here we have a situation where two parties, two litigants, albeit wealthy companies, were complaining to the courts, as they have a right to do, that the statutory board in question, the Port of Singapore Authority, had bent the law, that the Port of Singapore Authority had not followed the law when it acquired their properties. So they were complaining that the Port of Singapore Authority had bent the law, and they went to the court. They did not, of course, succeed in the court of first instance. But they had a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal and, further still, to the Privy Council if they thought it necessary. But that was not all. As I have said, somebody else could bring an action, somebody who perhaps did not think that the decision of the High Court was right in this matter. He could bring an action complaining that the Port of Singapore Authority had bent the law.

Now, what this Bill seeks to do is to tell them, "You cannot complain any more that the Port of Singapore Authority or any of the other statutory boards had bent the law." So what is the citizen to do in such a case when he sees this state of affairs? He is told that the Government, the Ministries, will not bend the law. He accepts that. I do not think anybody wants the law to be bent. But what has he got to say when he finds that when he makes a complaint to the court that a Government agency, a statutory board, has bent the law (because that is what it amounts to - not strictly following the provisions of the Act, the law), he is shut out. He is told, "You cannot complain. You have got to accept it. You cannot have any recourse to the courts."

Mr Speaker, Sir, it is in my respectful submission a most reprehensible state of affairs. There cannot be one law for the Government, one law for the Government agencies, statutory boards, and another law for the citizens. We are all subject to the same law. If the citizen cannot bend the law and it cannot be bent for him, then it should not be bent or cannot be bent for a statutory board or any Government organization. I do not know what is the need for the haste with which this Bill was introduced.

May I say, Mr Speaker, Sir, that it does not reflect very much confidence in this House, or the Ministry perhaps, in the judgment of the High Court that we should be asked to sit, as it were, like a Court of Appeal upon the judgment of the High Court and confirm it for all time. Why has it been necessary to introduce this Bill now rather than allow the litigants who were before the High Court to exhaust the whole judicial machinery? It interferes with a vested right that they had acquired when they commenced the action.

On that ground alone I would say that this Bill is thoroughly objectionable. I would ask the Minister to consider this matter again, at least whether the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee not only on this question but also on the other matter on which I propose to speak, i.e. the second objective of this Bill which, in point of order, is the first one in the Bill [clause 2] to amend the provisions in the Acts specified in the Schedule so as to obviate the necessity for the statutory boards mentioned in the Schedule to first enter into negotiations with property owners before they acquire the land. As the Minister has pointed out, the provisions in the various Acts state that where land is needed for the purposes of the statutory boards, they should try and acquire that land by agreement, and only when the property cannot be acquired by agreement that they should have recourse to the machinery in the Land Acquisition Act.

Mr Speaker, Sir, if there is one Act which has caused a lot of unhappiness in Singapore and which has impoverished the people in Singapore, it is the Land Acquisition Act. May I say, Sir, that it is not on behalf of the wealthy land owners that I am talking, people who own acres and acres of land in Singapore. They are few. This Act has impoverished many a person who is nowhere near being wealthy. I have in my constituency, Mr Speaker, Sir, in the Kampong Bahru area, people who probably really belong to the lower middle class, who own their little houses - they are situated in Miri Road, Borneo Road - and there are also the shopkeepers. They are not wealthy by any means. They are, as I have said, probably of the lower middle class group. If this Bill is passed and if their properties are affected by this acquisition as they are, they cannot complain that the Port of Singapore Authority had not in the first place approached them and tried to acquire their land by private arrangement. I am aware that there was a recent announcement by the Government of a change in policy that where the acquisition is of a house occupied for dwelling purposes, then the compensation that should be awarded should relate to an amount equal to providing the person with an alternative house. But that was a matter of policy I understood, and I do not think it has yet been implemented. That only applies to dwelling houses. There are the shopkeepers, the small shopkeeper who owns his own shop. You are going to bring the full rigours of the Land Acquisition Act to bear on him. Before the introduction of this Bill (and it only came to light because of these cases that went up to the High Court), the statutory boards would have been obliged to negotiate with him in the first place to see whether they can reach an agreement for the purchase of the property.

Mr Speaker, Sir, when the Land Acquisition Act was first introduced, it provided for adequate compensation to be paid to persons whose properties were acquired under the Act. When we became a part of Malaysia in 1963, this was safeguarded in the Constitution of Malaysia - that no law shall provide for the compulsory acquisi- tion of property without adequate compensation.

In 1964, even while we were still a part of Malaysia, an attempt was made to amend the Land Acquisition Act, or Ordinance as it was then known, to provide for less than adequate compensation to property owners whose properties were acquired. That Bill was referred to a Select Committee and that Select Committee sent a report back to the House saying that, until the Constitution was amended, the main provisions of the Bill could not take effect because it might be considered to be ultra vires the Constitution. So that Bill, I think, died a natural death.

And then when we came out of Malaysia, the Constitution was amended by taking out the requirement that adequate compensation be paid to property owners if their lands or properties were acquired under the Land Acquisition Act. So the way was made clear for the introduction of a new Act, the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act in 1966 which went on to provide for compensation for the owners whose properties were acquired. And, as I said, these were less than adequate compensation. In a report to the Select Committee, the estate valuers body said that this Bill (that was then being considered), which was to provide for less than adequate compensation, departed from the accepted principle that when a government acquired property it should pay adequate reasonable compensation, and they thought that it was most undesirable. So this became an accomplished fact in 1966, departing from the accepted principle in most civilized countries that if you must acquire property from your citizens, then you pay your citizen adequate compensation, you do not impoverish him.

That Act continued until 1973 when more drastic provisions were introduced, and as the Judge observed in his judgment the gulf between reasonable adequate compensation, the market price, i.e. the price prevailing at the time of the acquisition, and the compensation paid under the Land Acquisition Act pursuant to the amendments in 1973, was unbridgeable. So as the Judge himself observed there was a wide gulf between adequate reasonable compensation that should have been paid to the owner of the property and the compensation that the Act proposed to pay.

One might say that the poor man has to accept this in the national interest if the land is required for a public purpose, for example, for defence purposes, or for the building of a hospital or a school which is intended to serve and benefit the community at large. But why should he be asked to accept this sacrifice where the acquisition is by a commercial undertaking? The Port of Singapore Authority is a commercial undertaking. If one looks at the Schedule to the Port of Singapore Authority Act which sets out the functions and duties of the Port of Singapore Authority, one will find that the Authority is empowered to carry on various businesses like shipbuilding, shiprepairing, warehousing. So it is a commercial organization. And as the Judge observed, these properties were acquired for the purpose of a multi-storey warehouse and terminal for the businesses of the PSA.

So my question is: why should it be thought not necessary for these people who occupy these houses to be paid adequate reasonable compensation? It is all wrong. I would ask the House to consider seriously whether it is right that the principle of the Land Acquisition Act be applied in acquisitions by statutory boards which are, really, carrying on commercial undertakings. I expect the Port of Singapore Authority, when it builds its warehouses, will let them out at competitive rates. It is not going to let them out at a pittance - at cheap rates. I should think not. So why should the poor owner be made to sacrifice his hard-earned wealth and give up his property?

There are eight statutory boards mentioned in the Schedule and except perhaps for the Monuments Board and the National University of Singapore, the others are really commercial undertakings, although one would, I suppose, include the Housing and Development Board as a board for a public purpose, even though the Board carries on its activities as a commercial organization.

Mr Speaker, Sir, it is my respectful submission to this House and to the Mem- bers a principle worthy of adoption by us that, first of all, the Government and statutory boards, Government agencies, should be on the same footing as private citizens when it comes to acquisition of properties and the prices that are paid. You have this anomaly. The Government acquires properties at prices which are far, far below the market price. As the Judge said in the High Court, it is unbridgeable. It is an exercise in futility if you try to match them. Yet when it comes to selling these properties, what does the Government do? It sells them at the inflated market price.

I recall to mind, Mr Speaker, Sir, the remarks made by a taxi driver to me. This was sometime before I became a Member of Parliament, and before the NTUC started its correction classes for taxi drivers to stop them talking too much. We were passing a site which had been acquired by the Urban Redevelopment Authority. He was a Chinese man. He was talking to me in Malay, and he said, "Look at this. Who can't get rich like this? You buy at 10 cents and then you sell for $100. 1 can also get rich like this." He was not the owner of the property, but he could see the whole injustice of it. To him, it was daylight plunder. And that is the view of many of our people about the Land Acquisition Act.

Today we are not debating the Land Acquisition Act. We are debating the Port of Singapore Authority Act and the other Acts. But I brought this in because what this Bill seeks to do is to equate the acquisition by these statutory boards with the acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act. I would, in all seriousness and in earnestness, ask the Minister whether he would give further consideration to this Bill. I would address this to the Minister personally - would he ask his colleagues in the Cabinet to consider this Bill further and, even if it is not necessary to refer this Bill to a Select Committee, whether there is any reason why statutory boards which are run like commercial organizations or undertakings should not pay, forget about the market price but, at least, some reasonable adequate compensation to the owners when the boards are going to use their property for a commercial under-taking.

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Member for Anson has spoken at length. My response need not be lengthy because this Bill has a very specific purpose. It seeks to amend several laws, to delete certain provisions, certain words, which had given rise to litigation. In the course of the litigation, the High Court came to a clear judgment as to the meaning of those words, and this Bill seeks to remove any further uncertainty or doubt which may arise as a result of such legislation not being changed.

I do not think that one can seriously criticize this Bill if one did not have a very good grasp of the judgment of the Judge in the High Court on this particular case. I thought that the Member for Anson, when he took the floor, had such knowledge. After his long speech I am convinced that he has no idea of the key essentials of the judgment of the High Court. If one reads the judgment, it will be very clear as to how absurd it would be to interpret the words to arrive at any other meaning than what the Court had reached. Secondly, although the Member for Anson tried to pre-empt a reply from me on his remarks about the Land Acquisition Act by saying that we are not debating the Land Acquisition Act after his rambling pot shots at the Act, let me say that I also assume that a Member who wants to take the Government to task for the land acquisition policy in this House must be presumed to be very familiar with the various important considerations and grounds which have influenced the evolution of the Government's land acquisition policy, starting with important pronouncements made in this House, either by the Prime Minister or the Minister for Law and National Development (and now Minister for Law) in 1961, 1963, 1964, 1966, (as well as the debate on the Constitutional Commission in 1967) and in 1973. Those pronouncements clearly explained why it was necessary for Singapore in its particular circumstances, considering that land was a scarce commodity and that the situation of land is unique in Singapore as compared to other countries, to have adopted the policy that we did and why the land acquisition policy evolved the way it did. And the Member for Anson has shown in his speech that he is not conversant with these fundamental considerations.

Land is a special situation in Singapore. He has made the preposterous statement that if there is any Act in Singapore which has impoverished large numbers of people, it is the Land Acquisition Act. My response is that it is not only untrue but that is a clear falsehood. In fact, I challenge the Member for Anson to point out to me any other country in the world which has such a scarcity of land, which has such a high density of population but which nevertheless has been able to achieve the degree of success in housing, industrialization, port facilities and other important social, economic and industrial development, notwithstanding the scarcity of the land. Indeed I would go so far as to say that if this Government had not the foresight and wisdom to evolve the land acquisition policy it did over the years, we would not have the Singapore that we know today, where more than 70% of the population are housed in public housing, where we have roads, and other facilities. He referred to the Port of Singapore Authority and wondered, with some feigned incredulity, how port and warehouse facilities could be equated with public purpose. I would have thought that any secondary school child would know why for Singapore, as one of the busiest ports in the world, port facilities are an integral part of the economy; how can it be said that our port facilities are unrelated to any public purpose?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I think his remarks do not warrant any detailed examination for I think any disinterested observer, whether in Singapore or abroad, coming to Singapore, seeing the situation, marvels at the way in which we have been able to achieve the progress in national interest in all sectors of development. Could this have been possible by a land acquisition policy which followed the archaic concepts in other countries where land is plentiful and where private property interests prevailed over over-riding national interest? The answer is obviously no.

Let me now come to the specific points he raised about this individual piece of legislation. He has made equally unsu- portable propositions. First of all, he said that this has denied these landowners, most of whom are wealthy, immunity from legal process, and he has said that no landowner will be able -

Mr Jeyaretnam: It gives the statutory boards immunity.

Prof. Jayakumar: It will give the statutory boards immunity? That, too, is a complete distortion of this Bill. He interprets the two clauses as conferring statutory boards immunity from legal process in any case of land acquisition. If one reads the Bill carefully, one can see that clause 3 says:

'No compulsory acquisition of any immovable property ... shall be called in question in any court on the ground that the acquisition was not in compliance with any of the specified provisions ...'. and the specified provisions are set out in the Schedule. Therefore, where is the immunity that he refers to? Persons are still free to bring whatever legal action they are entitled to under the law in respect of all other aspects of land acquisition. So it is not true.

The second point he has raised is that this takes away vested rights. The simple question before us and before this House is this. Do we want uncertainty with regard to land acquisition? Do we want public development schemes to be impeded, held up and delayed while various legal actions - pending, not pending, still in the minds of litigants - take their natural course? Anyone who has read the judgment of the High Court will come to the answer, "Obviously not." The judg ment of the High Court has pointed out that if the contrary interpretation prevails, the result will be that there will be two groups of statutory boards: one group of statutory boards which will be under an obligation to enter into negotiations, and another group of statutory boards which are not under an obligation. The High Court has also pointed out that another effect of a contrary interpretation would be that there would be two legal regimes of land acquisition: one legal regime where statutory boards will have to pay compensation at present day values, and another regime of land acquisition where statutory boards will have to pay at the 1973 values. The question therefore is, could this Legislature and its predecessors have envisioned such an absurd result? The answer is no, and precisely to confirm that intention this Bill has been tabled.

Mr Jeyaretnam: May I be allowed to answer?

Mr Speaker: You are allowed only to speak once to any Question, Mr Jeyaretnam, under our Standing Orders.

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. - [Prof Jayakumar].

Bill considered in Committee.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Clause 1 -

The Chairman: The citation year will be altered from "1982" to "1983".

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 and 3 -

Question put, "That clauses 2 and 3 stand part of the Bill."

Mr Jeyaretnam: I claim for a division, Sir.

The Chairman: Would you accept a voice vote, Mr Jeyaretnam?

Mr Jeyaretnam: If it will save time, yes. But I would ask that the names of Members voting against it be recorded.

The Chairman: All right. Your name will be recorded as opposing the Question. Let me take the votes again.

Question put, "That clauses 2 and 3 stand part of the Bill."

Mr Jeyaretnam: Nay.

The Chairman: The Ayes have it.

Clauses 2 and 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Schedule ordered to stand part of the Bill.

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