DEPARTMENTAL SUMMONSES (Improvement to procedure and execution)

Mr Chiam See Tong asked the Minister for Law whether the procedure and execution of departmental summonses will be improved with a view to cutting down the number of offenders having to attend court.

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, procedures already exist whereby such offenders can avoid having to attend court. This is so in respect of compoundable offences. They need not attend court if they pay the composition fee.

In the majority of departmental summonses referred to by the Member, the offenders are offered composition. The problem of the large number of court cases arises only because many people ignore offers of composition and allow them to lapse, leading to summonses requiring them to appear in court. Whey they do appear, most of them plead guilty.

Furthermore, in relation to many departmental offences, an offender may plead guilty by letter and agree to pay the fine which may be imposed. This also does away with the need to appear in court.

As many of the offenders could be unaware of the benefits of composition payment to avoid attending court, efforts are now being made to educate and inform the public of the advantage of compounding offences. In his address at the Opening of the new Subordinate Courts in January this year, the Chief Justice has emphasised the need for offenders to fully utilise the composition facility available in the majority of departmental summonses. Recently, the Housing and Development Board, the Urban and Redevelopment Authority and the Traffic Police followed this up by mounting a joint initiative to educate motorists on the advantages of paying composition fines promptly.

In recent years, a number of departments have introduced various measures to make composition payments easier, eg, payment by telephone banking, automated teller machine, electronic fund transfer or payment at post office.

Finally, Sir, I wish to inform the Member that the Attorney-General and the Ministry of Law are now reviewing the law to ascertain if the composition fee or pleading guilty by letter can be extended to further categories of offences.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, the Minister has mentioned about educating offenders. I think in this area perhaps the Police are not doing enough. I hardly see any posters or pamphlets being circulated to get offenders to compound their fines. So I ask the Minister whether his Ministry is willing to widen this education process to offenders.

Prof. Jayakumar: Sir, the authorities as well as the judiciary, I am sure, will welcome any useful suggestions from the Member or anybody else which would help to facilitate this process of getting people to pay the composition fees. As far as the Police are concerned, the department in the Police which would be most interested, as far as composition of fees is concerned, would be the Traffic Police. As I have just mentioned in my answer, the Traffic Police is one of the departments which has recently embarked on this educational and awareness campaign.