SINGAPORE ARMED FORCES (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Second Minister for Defence (Dr Yeo Ning Hong): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Act was recently passed by this House. As Members are aware, the Constitutional amendments empower the President to safeguard the integrity and the competence of the public service.

Article 21 of the Constitution provides that the appointment and revocation of appointments to the offices of Chief of Defence Force, Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force require the President's concurrence, acting in his own discretion.

This Bill seeks as a consequential amendment to amend the Singapore Armed Forces Act to bring the appointment of the Chief of Defence Force, the Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force in line with the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (Amendment) Act.

The Bill proposes that these appointments and revocations be made on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will be required to consult the Armed Forces Council before tendering his advice to the President. This is to ensure that the Prime Minister will have the benefit and the experience of the Armed Forces Council in his choice of nominees.

The Bill also spells out the composition of the Armed Forces Council. The Armed Forces Council is the highest policy making body which oversees the administration of the Singapore Armed Forces. At present, the Singapore Armed Forces Act only specifies that the Armed Forces Council shall consist of the Minister as Chairman and such other members as the Minister appoints. To ensure the continued integrity and competence of the Armed Forces Council, this Bill proposes that the Armed Forces Council consist of:

(a) The Minister charged with the responsibility for Defence, and any other Ministers who have been assigned to assist him.

(b) The key officers in MINDEF and the SAF, namely, the Permanent Secretary or Secretaries of the Ministry of Defence, the Chief of Defence Force, the Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force.

(c) In addition, not more than four other non-ex officio members can be appointed by the President if he concurs with the advice of the Prime Minister. Sir, such non-ex officio members can assist the Armed Forces Council with their special expertise and experience.

The Bill also makes amendments in a number of other matters, resulting from working experience with the Singapore Armed Forces Act over the years.

Sir, many Singaporeans volunteer to serve in the SAF. This is very commendable. This Bill brings volunteers into the mainstream of the SAF, so that volunteers will now enjoy the same status as SAF national servicemen and regulars. This is in contrast to their previous status under the People's Defence Force Act.

Sir, there are presently two types of fact-finding bodies convened in the SAF. They are the Boards of Inquiry and Committees of Inquiry. Boards of Inquiry can only consist of members of the Singapore Armed Forces, whereas a Committee of Inquiry can include non-members of the SAF.

It has been the practice of the SAF to convene Committees of Inquiry (COI) where a matter of public interest is involved. In such cases, the COI is usually chaired by a civilian and may include other civilians from outside MINDEF. This Bill strengthens the Committees of Inquiry with the powers to summon witnesses and administer oaths and provides for procedures similar to those of a Board of Inquiry.

Under section 111 of the existing SAF Act, there is a time bar of three years from the time of commission for most offences, beyond which no disciplinary action can be taken against the offender. Presently, only two offences, namely, mutiny and desertion are not subjected to this time bar.

Sir, this Bill proposes that two additional offences, namely, misconduct in action and assisting the enemy, both punishable by death, should also not be subjected to the time bar as these are very serious offences.

Currently, if a serviceman is not charged for Absent Without Official Leave (AWOL) within three years, or he has gone AWOL for more than three years, he can only be charged with the more serious offence of desertion. Sometimes, there are strong mitigating circumstances where it is more appropriate to charge such a serviceman with the lesser offence of AWOL. Sir, this Bill removes the time bar for AWOL offences and will give Mindef the flexibility to bring the lesser charge against the offending serviceman.

In the SAF, military offences are either dealt with summarily by a Disciplinary Officer or by a Subordinate Military Court. At present, an active serviceman can only be tried summarily within six months from the date of the offence. However, there may be cases where the detection or the investigation of the offence takes more than six months and hence it passes the six-month time bar. In such cases, the only recourse available is trial by court martial. This normally carries a heavier penalty.

Sir, this Bill gives the Armed Forces Council the discretion in specific cases to raise the time bar for summary trials. However, there will be an upper limit of three years from the time of offence beyond which summary trial cannot take place.

Finally, Sir, the current scale of fines prescribed in the SAF was instituted in 1972. In line with revised penalties for civilian offences, the Bill proposes to revise the scale of fines, to retain their deterrent effects.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Charles Chong (Sembawang GRC): Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak on this Bill.

The GPC for Defence is generally supportive of the rationale and the objectives of the Singapore Armed Forces (Amendment) Bill. It is recognised that most of the proposed amendments are consequential changes relating to the recent constitutional amendment on the Elected President. Other amendments proposed are mainly related to the updating and rationalisation of existing provisions in the Singapore Armed Forces Act. However, with your kind permission, Sir, I would like to take this opportunity to comment on a few provisions in the Bill.

The proposed section 8(2) of the Bill makes it clear that the Minister for Defence shall be the Chairman of the Armed Forces Council. Sir, I think it would be prudent that when the Minister for Defence is also the Prime Minister the functions of the Chairman of the Armed Forces Council should be performed by a Minister or a Minister of State who is a member of the Armed Forces Council, other than the Prime Minister. The reason for this is that the new section 10A(1) and (2) of the Bill requires the Prime Minister to consult the Armed Forces Council on the appointment or revocation of appointment of the Chief of Defence Force and the Chiefs of the Army, Air Force and Navy before he advises the President. If the Prime Minister is also the Minister for Defence and consequently Chairman of the Armed Forces Council, a situation may arise where the Prime Minister may have to consult himself before he advises the President.

Sir, Article 37B(4) of our newly amended Constitution stipulates that the Chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisors whenever he performs the functions of the President, shall not act as Chairman of the Council simultaneously. The provision of this Article in the Singapore Constitution is perhaps to prevent a situation where a key office holder becomes his own advisor. Therefore, I think it would be appropriate that a similar provision should be drafted in the Armed Forces Act to avoid a situation where the Prime Minister acts as his own advisor.

Sir, I would also like to comment on the new section 8B(2) of the Bill which states that where the Chairman of the Armed Forces Council is not present at any meeting of the Council, no business shall be transacted. New subsection (3) goes on further to state that even if the Chairman had appointed a member of the Council to act on his behalf, no decision of the Council on any matter made at the meeting can take effect until the written consent of the Chairman has been obtained. The requirements of section 8B therefore appear to be somewhat restrictive and may unnecessarily delay implementation of decisions of the Armed Forces Council if ever the Minister for Defence is away or not available for any length of time.

Sir, in our attempt to create more checks and balances on authority, which invariably will serve us well under normal circumstances, we should also consider provisions to ensure that in times of crisis, these checks and balances will not stifle independent initiative and delay implementation of critical decisions required to save the situation under abnormal circumstances. Perhaps the Minister could provide clarification and also some assurance that the requirements stipulated in new section 8B of the Bill will not be a hindrance to the operations of the Armed Forces Council, especially in times of crisis or emergency, when the Minister for Defence is not available.

Sir, the GPC for Defence welcomes the proposed section 8C of the Singapore Armed Forces (Amendment) Bill. This new section will empower the Armed Forces Council to appoint committees for general or specific purposes, including disciplinary matters and to conduct inquiries. Such committees would be entrusted with similar powers as that provided to a Board of Inquiry. I feel that this is a very timely amendment in view of the recent number of accidents involving SAF personnel, some of which have unfortunately resulted in fatalities.

Sir, I have no doubt that the SAF is constantly striving to eliminate as completely as possible the causes of accidents and the unnecessary exposure to hazardous situations during the training of its regulars, national servicemen and reservists. However, in the event that an unfortunate mishap does occur, it is essential that the families of the people involved as well as members of the public, almost all invariably have family members or friends serving in the SAF or as reservists, to be informed as completely as possible the circumstances leading to the mishap and the measures taken to prevent a recurrence of such mishaps.

We often hear after a mishap that a Committee or a Board of Inquiry has been convened to investigate the accident. However, in nearly every case we never hear much about the findings. I have been told that the findings of these Committees are usually classified. I would therefore like to urge the Minister to consider expanding section 8C of the Bill to make it necessary for the findings of any Committee of Inquiry or Board of Inquiry involving death or serious injury to be made public, if such findings are not deemed to be prejudicial to national security. I am sure that in the majority of cases there will be no necessity to keep the findings confidential.

With that, Mr Speaker, Sir, I support fully all the other provisions of the Bill, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments on the issues raised.

Dr Yeo Ning Hong: Sir, I want to thank the Member for his contributions on the Bill.

Let me first of all assure the House and members of the public that Mindef will spare no effort in ensuring the safety of our men during training. Sir, ours is a national service armed force and therefore safety must be of paramount importance. We have many safety measures in all our exercises. Let me just mention a couple of them for the information of Members.

We have safety officers whose sole responsibility is to ensure that all safety measures are fully complied with, for all live firing exercises, and for all exercises involving water. We also have specialist safety officers for all the air bases to ensure safety in flying operations. On top of that, we also have special inspectorate teams in the Army, in the Navy as well as in the Air Force, to go round to monitor and to audit all training procedures to ensure that the highest level of safety is maintained. Sir, despite all these measures, and however many safety features we build into our training procedures, we have to accept that accidents do happen. Sometimes people make mistakes. Sometimes equipment fail unexpectedly. These are the primary causes of accidents.

Sir, regarding the recent accidents that the Member alluded to, let me also assure the House that the three recent accidents are all isolated accidents. There are no systemic problems. The first accident was due to human error on the part of the co-pilot in the helicopter. The second accident, where a helicopter crashed, was most probably due to material failure. The third accident is probably a case of drowning. These are all isolated incidents and they do not reflect any systemic problem.

Sir, again I want to take the opportunity to put these accidents in the overall context so that Members will have a better understanding of the safety record of the Armed Forces, in particular, the Air Force.

Sir, our record shows that the Republic of Singapore Air Force today is very, very much safer than what it was 20 years ago. The major accident rate has come down eight times. In other words, our safety record today is eight times better than what it was 20 years ago. Even if we include the recent accidents of the helicopters, our safety record is comparable with those in air forces in developed countries operating similar aircraft.

Sir, Mr Chong also asked whether it is possible for reports of Committees of Inquiries to be made public in the case where death or fatality is concerned. Sir, the primary purpose of a Committee of Inquiry or a Board of Inquiry is to investigate the causes of the accident and to make recommendations to the Armed Forces Council to take remedial actions, if necessary, to prevent future occurrences. Sir, following British practice, the proceedings of these inquiries are privileged. Our legal system is based on the British legal system. The British Committees of Inquiries do not make their report public. Neither do we.

There are two reasons for it, legal and security. The legal difficulties are that witnesses appearing before Boards of Inquiry or Committees of Inquiry are not protected by the same rules of evidence in a normal court. In the case of accidents involving death, the case will go to the Coroner's court or to any other court that the Public Prosecutor so directs. If we publish the report of the Committee of Inquiry, then that report can prejudice the court's inquiry. Hence, for the protection of the witnesses who appear before the Committee, these reports cannot be made public.

Secondly, we have to remember that the Committee of Inquiry or the Board of Inquiry investigates the accidents and goes into the details of the operations of the SAF, particularly those areas which pertain to the accident, and such details of the training and operations of the SAF carry with them security implications.

Sir, in all cases where fatalities occur, the Police conducts independent inquiries and reports directly to the Attorney-General who has the discretion to prefer charges if he so decides against any accused person. The details of accidents can also be heard in a Coroner's court where the hearing is conducted in open. I take the point that the Member has made that family members of servicemen who are involved in accidents would like to know what happened and as much of the details as possible. We understand such feelings and, wherever possible, Sir, Mindef and the SAF will reveal to the families as much of the details as possible to keep them fully informed.

Sir, Mr Chong also asked two other questions. Would the Prime Minister be consulting himself if he is also the Minister for Defence, when he consults the Armed Forces Council prior to advising the President on the appointment or revocation of appointment of the four senior officers of the SAF? Sir, this will not be the case, because the Armed Forces Council, as I have pointed out earlier on in my Second Reading speech, will consist of a number of people other than the Minister himself. So the Prime Minister will have the benefit of the knowledge and experience of the entire Armed Forces Council.

The situation is also a little different from that which he used as an analogy, as a comparison, namely, the Chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisors. In that particular case, the Chairman is acting as the President, the final authority. In the case of the Prime Minister, he is not the final authority for the appointment of the four senior officers. He is only giving advice to the President who is the final authority for the appointment of those four officers.

Sir, the Member is also concerned that the checks and balances that we have built into this Bill may on occasions create hindrance or delay to efficient and effective decision-making. I want to thank the Member for his concern for the SAF and Mindef in operational matters. I just want to say that we have been working the system for a fair period of time and our experience suggests that the proposal is probably the best way.

Sir, the Armed Forces Council is the highest policy-making body of the Armed Forces and therefore decisions on policy matters should not be taken lightly. It is therefore important that the Minister himself should give his written consent to decisions taken in a meeting in which he is absent, where an Acting Chairman has been appointed.

Sir, let me clarify that there will not be any undue delay if the Minister for Defence is out of the country or unavailable for a lengthy period of time. Under such circumstances, the normal practice is for the Prime Minister to appoint a Minister to be the Acting Minister for Defence, and the Acting Minister for Defence will be directly responsible to Cabinet and to Parliament. Under those circumstances, the Acting Minister for Defence is de facto the Chairman of the Armed Forces Council. So no delay will result.

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. - [Dr Yeo Ning Hong].

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