ARMS OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

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

Let me say, at the outset, Sir, that the incidence of firearm robbery cases today is low. There were nine firearm robbery cases in 1992 - a drop from the 174 cases reported 20 years ago in 1973. So Members may be wondering why then is this Bill being moved. Let me explain. The Police are extremely concerned over regional trends which show a marked increase in the use of firearms in the commission of crimes and an upsurge in the flow of smuggled arms across borders.

Members are probably aware of the crime situation in the United States and the easy availability of arms there. But they may not know that in our region itself, countries are also experiencing a very big rise in violent crimes involving the use of firearms. For example, in China, the authorities are alarmed at the increase in murder, robbery and kidnapping cases in recent years involving the use of firearms and have taken measures to counter this rise. A related phenomenon is the increasing trade in black-market arms, most of which are being smuggled into the various countries in the region.

In Taiwan, in 1992 alone, a total of 6,377 units of arms, including rifles, handguns, imitation arms, were recovered by the authorities - more than a four-fold increase from the number recovered in 1991.

And our closest neighbour, Malaysia, which has similar firearm laws as Singapore, has not been spared. Over the past five years, there have been almost 3,500 firearm offences in Malaysia, about 16 times that of Singapore, calculated on a per capita basis. The incidence of firearm robberies, despite stringent enforcement by the Malaysian Police, remains high. In Malaysia, as with China, an important factor contributing to this rise is the increased inflow of smuggled arms into the country. Cases of multiple murders involving firearms that come to mind are those of Bentong Kali who killed 16 persons before he was shot dead by the Malaysian Police, as well as the secret society killings in Sungei Petani.

The Police are also concerned that as China and the Indochinese countries continue to open up, the Police expect the supply of arms smuggled out from these countries to increase. Some will find their way into Singapore.

It is absolutely important that we do not let such trafficking and illegal use of firearms, including grenades and bombs, to creep into our country. In Singapore, the recovery of hand grenades in two recent incidents provides justification for this concern. The first incident involved the discovery of two usable "Vietnam War era" grenades in a canal at Bedok in October 1991. The second incident involved an armed robbery of a goldsmith shop where two similar grenades were recovered on 19th November last year. These incidents underscore the possibility that firearms are being brought into Singapore from other places in the region. On 30th March 1992, one pregnant lady was killed when the car she was in was blown up with the use of explosives.

Therefore, Sir, the signal must go out clearly and loudly to all criminals, foreign and local, that we will take a very tough stand in Singapore. Otherwise, Singapore will not be spared from a rise in violent offences such as robberies, involving the use of firearms. Therefore, we need to amend the Arms Offences Act to provide greater deterrent effect.

Sir, the amendments will also plug a loophole in the Arms Offences Act. Under section 3(3) of the Act, any person who is armed at the time of the commission or apprehension for any of the scheduled offences - in other words, he has an arm on his person - will be guilty of an offence punishable with imprisonment for life and at least 6 strokes of the cane. But if he discharges his firearm without intending to injure anyone in the course of commission of the offence, the law does not provide for a heavier penalty which is death.

Why is this so? This is because section 4 of the Act imposes the mandatory death penalty only in cases where an offender uses or attempts to use an arm with the intention to cause physical injury to a person. To secure a conviction under section 4, the prosecution therefore has to prove the requisite intention to cause injury. In cases where injury or death is caused, of course, it would be easier for the prosecution to argue that the offender must have intended to cause injury as it is a logical consequence of the act of his discharge of the weapon. In cases where no injury is caused, the prosecution will find it difficult, if not impossible, to prove this intention. Indeed, this line of defence was put forward by three goldsmith robbers in a recent case. Members may remember reading the report of this case recently in June where three shots had been fired by the robbers during the robbery. No one was injured during the shooting. The prosecution sought to prove that two of the shots were fired at a security guard and another shot was fired at another guard with intent to cause injury. The accused denied any such intention. The Court found, on the evidence, that the prosecution had not proved beyond reasonable doubt an intention to injure the security guards and, accordingly, the capital charges were reduced to possession of arms at the time of commission of a scheduled offence under section 3(3), an offence which carries a penalty of life imprisonment.

Mr Speaker, Sir, the Government is concerned that this defect in the Act, if not cured, will lead to a situation where criminals who are familiar with the current legal position and bent on using the firearms would not hesitate to discharge them. Because of this defect, there is a possibility that seasoned criminals who discharged their firearms in the course of the commission of a scheduled offence may get off on the lesser offence of possession. They know that they have a chance of escaping the death penalty by pleading an absence of intention to injure any person. Although evidence of intention can be inferred from the surrounding circumstances, eg, where someone has been killed or injured as a result of the discharge of the firearm, it is difficult to prove such an intention where no one is injured.

Therefore, the law as it stands now is open to criticism because it in fact favours a criminal who intends to injure but who cannot shoot well. Surely this cannot be right. In law, logic or in policy, possession of firearms is a grave offence. Carrying it with you on your person when you are committing an offence is even worse. Discharging it when committing an offence must be viewed most seriously.

The punishment for such offences should not be made dependent on an accused's intention. A firearm is, as we all know, a very lethal weapon, and when fired, it can cause death or injury even to innocent bystanders in the vicinity, whatever the intention of the accused may be. Therefore, arms and firearms must be distinguished from other weapons like knives, parangs and so on. Not only to innocent bystanders but the discharge of a firearm has a tremendous effect of causing alarm on the population.

Sir, crimes of violence of this kind must be strongly deterred and suppressed. In particular, the unlawful use of arms must not be condoned. Otherwise, it will lead to greater use of arms for unlawful purposes in Singapore and we will face the experience of many other countries in this regard. Peace and good order, which we value so much in Singapore, will be threatened.

If I may go on to the amendments, Sir. The amendments achieve the following changes. First, by introducing a presumption clause under section 4(2) of the Act, vide clause 2, any person who has discharged a firearm will be presumed, until the contrary is proved, to have intended to cause injury to a person. The evidential burden will now be on the offender. To rebut the presumption, he has to produce evidence to prove that he did not intend to cause injury to anyone. This will assist the prosecution to overcome the evidentiary burden in this section.

Sir, the use of presumption clause for capital offence is not new. There are numerous precedents in the Misuse of Drugs Act where it is provided, for example, that where a person is proved to have the keys of anything containing a controlled drug, he is presumed, until the contrary is proved, to have had that drug in his possession. Under section 18(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, it is also provided that where a person is found in possession of a controlled drug, he is presumed, until the contrary is proved, to have known the nature of the controlled drug that he possesses.

Secondly, Sir, and this is the main amendment, a new section 4A is introduced creating a new capital offence. Under this new section 4A, any person who discharges or attempts to discharge an arm in the course of committing or attempting to commit any offence listed in the Schedule, in other words, a scheduled offence, will be guilty of an offence punishable with death. This is to rectify the defect I mentioned earlier, ie, to provide for a heavier penalty for an offender who actually discharges or who attempts to discharge an arm while in the course of commission or attempted commission of a scheduled offence. Under this new section, there is no requirement for the prosecution to prove that the offender had the intention to cause injury to any person by the discharge or attempted discharge of his arm. As long as the prosecution can prove that he discharged his arm or attempted to discharge his arm while in the course of committing a scheduled offence, he will be guilty of this new offence.

The reason for making attempted discharge of an arm while in the course of commission or attempted commission of a scheduled offence a capital offence is because offenders concerned have done everything they could in respect of these offences. In the case of attempted discharge, the arm failed to fire for reasons which are beyond their control. In the case of attempted commission, the offence was not completed because of external factors such as the timely arrival of the Police or the intervention of security guards. In any case, the public is equally put to alarm and fear by such attempts. There is therefore no reason to treat them otherwise.

Next, Sir, vide clause 4 of the Bill, section 5 will also be re-enacted to make the accomplice of an offender of section 4A who is present at the scene of the crime and who ought reasonably to be aware of the fact that the offender is armed and who fails to take reasonable steps to prevent the discharge of the arm guilty of an offence punishable with death. This is the principle which is presently set out in the Act.

Finally, Sir, one minor procedural amendment is that under section 12 of the Arms Offences Act, the President is empowered to amend the Schedule to the Act by an order. In modern legislation, such powers are normally conferred on the Minister. My Ministry proposes to amend the section to transfer this power to the Minister.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Zulkifli Bin Mohammed (Jalan Besar GRC): Sir, having listened to the background given by the Minister, I rise in support of this Bill.

Sir, the increasing flow in firearms trafficking, as has been told earlier to the House, is a trend that we cannot afford to pay scant attention to. While the use of firearms in Singapore has not reached alarming proportions, I am in total agreement with the Ministry of Home Affairs in taking a proactive approach by introducing whatever measures that are deemed necessary to keep our crime rate as low as possible.

Sir, it is beyond doubt that our strict laws have been an effective deterrent in keeping serious crimes to a manageable level and in keeping out hard-core criminals from using Singapore as their base of operations. There must be no let-up in sending such strong signals in order to enable us to continue to enjoy a safe environment.

Sir, under the proposed amendment, ie, clause 4 which re-enacts section 5, the death penalty can be meted out to an accomplice who fails to take reasonable steps to prevent the use of any arm by the main criminal who normally is the mastermind. In this connection, I must admit that I do not feel comfortable as my concern is that accomplices are sometimes coerced or threatened and may not have agreed to the use of arms when the offence is committed. Here, I want to be assured by the Minister that whilst chances for a wrong conviction may be remote, he is fully satisfied that there are sufficient checks and balances before the death penalty is imposed on accomplices. I would therefore be grateful for the Minister's clarification on this matter.

On this note, Sir, I once again support the Bill.

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon: Mr Speaker, Sir, I have had the dubious distinction of having been a victim of an armed robber at gun point. I hasten to add not in Singapore but at some place else. So I fully support stringent measures to control arms and control the use of arms.

My reservation about the amendment Bill is really a reservation about making mandatory death penalties. When a judge is faced with a problem, he has to decide what sentence is appropriate. The reason why we give judges the discretion to impose sentences is that Parliament cannot foresee all the possibilities. And the strength of the common law system that we have is that we do not try to foresee all the possibilities. When you impose a mandatory sentence, you take away that flexibility from the judge and all the more so when you impose a mandatory death sentence, because this is the ultimate sentence and cannot be recalled. Before this House passes the amendments, I hope that we all understand what we are doing.

If you look at the Arms Offences Act, if you possess a firearm, you will go to jail, you will be caned. If you possess a firearm for one of the scheduled offences, in other words, the more serious offences, it is life imprisonment plus caning. If you fire a gun in the course of an offence with intent to injure someone, then under the present section 4, that is mandatory death sentence. I do not think there is any problem with that. And the amendment that is being proposed means that the presumption is that when you fire the gun, you intend to injure someone. What I am apprehensive about is the new section 4A which basically says that if you fire a gun when committing one of the scheduled offences, whether you intend to injure someone or not, that means death; and it also means death for all your accomplices. Does this in fact improve the deterrent effect of the Arms Offences Act? I do not think so. I am not sure whether it is really desirable to treat people who fire a gun accidentally, let us say, on par with someone who fires a gun in order to hurt someone else.

What happens if you got a robber who accidentally discharges the gun? This is the use without intent. Mandatory death sentence. Mandatory death sentence for accomplices too. Are we comfortable with that? What happens if you got an armed robber who fires in the air, a warning shot? No intent to injure anyone. Mandatory death sentence for him and mandatory death sentence for his accomplices. Will it improve matters? Do armed robbers take these things into account? Do they go and check up the legislation first to see whether it is mandatory or not? I doubt it very much. So I am not sure the deterrent effect is increased one bit by having a mandatory sentence. You might have situations where the imposition of a mandatory sentence makes a desperate man more desperate. For example, look at the scheduled offences. One of the scheduled offences is kidnapping. Another one is abduction. Another one is resisting arrest. You have someone who accidentally discharges his gun in the course of a kidnapping. Mandatory death sentence. He has taken the victim already. Is the victim going to survive if he knows that once he is charged there is no chance of anything except death?

Many years ago in this House, an amendment was proposed to the Kidnapping Act to make death sentence mandatory for kidnapping. As was pointed out by the then Dean of the Law Faculty, Prof. Tommy Koh, if you did this, you almost guarantee that the victim is not going to live because the kidnappers would rather kill him than run the risk of him identifying them. You are in effect doing the same thing with this amendment. If you have a kidnapping and somebody accidentally discharges a gun or discharges a gun in warning, without intent to kill anyone, that is a mandatory death sentence. The victim is going to be dead for sure. Resisting arrest, similarly. Somebody in the course of resisting arrest accidentally discharges his gun, he loses nothing more by actually shooting to kill the next time when the police come for him. So I hope we are sure what we are doing down here.

I understand the Minister's concern and I fully support the Minister's concern to ensure that Singapore is a hostile environment to people who want to traffic guns. My primary apprehension is: are we going to make things worse by imposing a mandatory death sentence? Is it not sufficient if we keep it as it is by amending section 4 with the presumption? If you take out the new section 4A, it will make no difference in my submission. Because basically what you will have is that if somebody does fire a gun, there is a presumption that he meant to injure someone and that means he can be convicted and sentenced to death. If he can satisfy the Judge that he fires without intent to injure anyone, then you can get him for possession of the gun under section 33 or 34, send him to jail for life, and cane him with six strokes. Is there really a need to make it a capital offence just to fire a gun irrespective of the intention? I hope that Members of this House would seriously consider what I have said when they vote on these amendments.

Mr Chia Shi Teck: Sir, I share the sentiments of Prof. Walter Woon. I would like to ask the Minister whether he knows of the Kuala Lumpur experience, ie, whether Kuala Lumpur has this mandatory death sentence on the possession of firearms. As such, we often see robberies in car parks where the robbers just simply shoot because it is mandatory death sentence anyway.

Mr Choo Wee Khiang (Jalan Besar GRC): ( In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, after hearing the Nominated Member, Prof. Walter Woon, I am not quite sure who he is speaking for. Is he speaking for the criminals or is he speaking for the security and safety of the society at large? I support the Arms Offences (Amendment) Bill.

As the Minister has stated just now, in the United States, buying of arms is as easy as turning your palm. So the use of arms is very prevalent. It is increasing all the time. It is reported widely in the newspapers. We are all very familiar with it. The Minister has also said that in Southeast Asia, China and Taiwan, the use of arms in criminal offences is very common and the cases involve casualty, death or injury. As a matter of fact, the use of arms or explosives in robbery and other criminal activities is getting more and more serious. Fortunately, in Singapore, it is not so serious. But it does not mean that we should be complacent and we should not take any precautionary measures to ensure that this situation will not happen in Singapore and the crime situation here will not deteriorate. In fact, we must take all precautionary measures against possession and use of arms. There is only one way to achieve this objective, ie, by imposing heavy punishment against the potential criminals for the use of arms and explosives.

As I have stated, I am not quite sure whether the NMP is aware of the mindset of the People's Action Party members. We all want our people to work and live in peace. We hope that our tourists will also be safe in Singapore. We also hope that our investors will be very safe, physically and financially. So I would ask Prof. Walter Woon this question: if a robber committing a robbery in a goldsmith shop fired a shot and a heart patient who happened to be around got a shock and died, then can we say it was just his bad luck? This robber, if arrested, goes in for a maximum of life imprisonment. An innocent life is lost and the criminal does not get what he deserves. I feel it is not quite right.

Dr Soin also appears to be speaking on behalf of the foreign maids. Of course, on humanitarian ground, it might be acceptable in her case. But Prof. Walter Woon seems to be speaking for the bad guys all the time! I just do not understand why he does not consider the potential victims - those people who might lose their life as potential victims in this kind of cases.

I support the amendments proposed by the Minister. I feel that these amendments will make Singapore a safer and more secure society. Prof. Woon says that the armed robber may have no intention to use his arms. If he has no intention, then why does he carry arms or explosives? When he is in illegal possession of arms or explosives, the intention is very clear. I support this Bill.

Mr Ling How Doong (Bukit Gombak): Mr Speaker, Sir, I wish to express my concern regarding the punishment for the accomplice. This is simply because, if you look at the proposed section here, any person who carries a gun, and if he is present at the scene of the offence, it would be mandatory death sentence for him if convicted. One would have noticed that in past cases, "present at the scene" could even cover cases of robbery at a hotel where the robber entered the room and his accomplice stayed outside at the corridor. In the past it had been decided by the Court of law that he was present and he was then convicted accordingly. Imagine for a moment, two or three persons decided to rob a goldsmith shop. One of them acted as the driver. So he sat in the car outside the goldsmith shop. The other two who were carrying arms would enter the goldsmith shop. In the course of robbery, one of them opened fire. If we look at the definition of this section here, the one who sat in the car, ready to run with these people, would also be convicted and sentenced to death. I feel that it is too harsh. Where firearm is concerned, I really do not know how one can prevent the other from firing.

Imagine for a moment, three robbers agreed to rob a goldsmith shop. They agreed that no one should fire. Actually they know the law. They said that no one should fire the gun. But one is at one end of the shop and the other is at the other end. How on earth can he prevent him from firing? It is clearly stated in the Bill that "he had taken all reasonable steps to prevent the use of such arm". How do you prevent the use of such arm?

I would urge this House to consider that in the case of a person who is not the actual perpetrator of the offence, life penalty should be sufficient. Because if you look at the common intention provision, you would notice that one could be some distance away from the scene but, nonetheless, could be brought in under the provision on common intention, ie, section 34 of the Penal Code. Then he would be punished accordingly, the same force as the actual perpetrator of the crime. Therefore, I would urge this House to seriously consider that in the case of an accomplice, life imprisonment would be sufficient, rather than death penalty, in the circumstances.

Dr Kanwaljit Soin: Mr Speaker, I just want to make a response to what Mr Choo said. First, I think it behoves Singaporeans to be humanitarian towards foreign labour. Secondly, I think Singapore's good name was being questioned in what I was saying, and Mr Choo would do well to support me as well in this matter.

Mr Choo Wee Khiang: Sir, may I clarify?

Mr Speaker: All right.

Mr Choo Wee Khiang: ( In Mandarin): I fully agree with Dr Soin's statement. Therefore, I can accept on the humanitarian ground. But I would like to rebut what Mr Ling said just now. He was trying to encourage people to commit crime. I do not understand. If he was not encouraging people to commit crime, then he should support this Bill.

Prof. Jayakumar: I thank the Members who have spoken. Let me refer to Prof. Walter Woon's comments, and he has got an amendment to substitute life imprisonment for death penalty which I take it is consequent to the views he has expressed. There are different ways in which we can approach the examination of this amendment. One could take a very legalistic, purist, approach to analysing this amendment. But as the Minister for Home Affairs in charge of making sure that our peace, security and law and order are maintained, I must take into account the hard facts of life. One hard fact of life, let me say at the outset, is that in the many discussions I had with the Commissioner of Police and the Director of CID, the Director of CID has told me that the perception or understanding in the criminal underworld when they amended the Act in 1973 was that discharge per se of a gun would carry the death penalty. It may have been a mistaken non-legal academic interpretation of the Act. But he says that the underworld understood it to be that for 20 years until recently. Whether it is until recently because of the goldsmith robbery case, I do not know. But until recently, the underworld has understood the law to be that discharge per se of a gun you get the death penalty. The Director of CID strongly believes that is one of the reasons why there has been a low incidence of firearm robbery. I say to this House that if you want to keep Singapore away from the path of the United States and other countries where the use of guns is commonplace, we better give a clear signal.

In this regard, I think it is relevant for me to mention that the World Competitiveness Report 1993 ranked 23 OECD countries and 15 NICs on a wide variety of matters. One of the matters which was ranked was: Is there confidence among the people that the person and property are protected (on a scale of 1 to 10)? Singapore was ranked 9.5. In other words, people's perception that the person and property are protected, we ranked 9.5, the highest among the NICs and higher than the highest ranked country amongst the OECD, with Japan at 9.1.

Let us come back to basic facts and the real world. Do we want to keep it this way? I say it is in our interest to keep it this way. How has this been achieved? By fortuitous circumstances? I do not think so. I think the factors are, firstly, we have had strict laws when appropriate. Secondly, laws have been enforced effectively and fairly by an efficient Police force and an impartial and efficient system of courts. Thirdly, there is public support and cooperation with the Police. And I think we have got to keep it that way.

Let us come back to the points that he has raised. First, the question about mandatory and non-mandatory sentence and accidentally discharging a gun. I would again urge that we look at the situation. What is the situation? Who are we talking about? The person who has discharged the gun, who will be subject to this strict law, and it is a harsh strict law, that it almost brings the law to that of strict liability, but I make no apologies for it. Who are we talking about? The person must have done the following. First, he must have somehow got hold of a gun. He is in unlawful possession of a gun in the first place. That is fact number one. Second, he carries the gun on his person. That is already bad, even if he is not committing an offence or a scheduled offence. Third, he plans to commit a robbery and he carries a gun along with him. The law deals with that. The situation we are talking about is where he has the audacity to actually in the course of committing, not any offence, a scheduled offence - we single out the more serious offences - he discharges the gun. I say that he deserves no sympathy from us whatsoever.

His claim that it went out accidentally is hollow because we want to give a signal to all those contemplating this sequence of events - don't do it. Don't do it in Singapore because the penalty is the most severe penalty that the courts can give out. You have anything less than that, judging by the experiences in other countries, they will take chances. This is the advice of the Police and these are people who have been dealing with criminal elements, and they have a good feel of the pulse of the criminals.

Prof. Walter Woon mentioned the point of kidnapping. We are not providing by this amendment that an offender who commits an offence of kidnapping will get mandatory death penalty. But we are saying in a situation where a group of offenders ambush the victim's car, fire off shots, they cannot claim leniency from the law. They must know that firing of a firearm has consequences. And if you talk to the Police, as I have done, they say that it is very theoretical and hypothetical to believe that the criminal in such circumstance is so logical and cool-headed that he will fire the firearm only intending it to be a warning shot. The situation in which such crimes take place is so fast-moving and so unpredictable that you do not expect a criminal to be so calculated. He must be expected to face the consequences of that situation and must have intended to have brought about the consequences if there is injury or death.

Since he is proposing that life imprisonment should suffice, let me point out why this is not acceptable. Prof. Walter Woon's amendment, which he is going to formally move, proposes that in such a situation life imprisonment will suffice. Let me point out, first of all, that under the Act, section 3(3) already punishes with life imprisonment and caning for an offender caught with an arm on his person while committing a scheduled offence. Therefore, his proposal will mean that the penalty should be the same, whether you had arm on you or whether you drew it out and fired it. Surely that cannot be right, that the penalty should be the same for both situations.

Next, if you look at the penalty for trafficking in arms under the existing Act, the death penalty can be imposed for a person trafficking in arms. The trafficker in arms can be said not to have caused the death of any person or injury of any person directly. At most, he is an indirect effect. But he can get the death penalty. It seems absurd that an offender who actually discharges and commits an offence is treated more leniently.

Next, accomplice. As has been pointed out, an accomplice can get the death penalty. It seems odd that the person who actually fires a gun gets off more leniently. This leads me to the comments made by the others on accomplice. First, in relation to what Mr Ling How Doong has pointed out and, I think, Mr Zulkifli, if you look at the first point, this is not a new provision and it is already in the Act and has been there for many, many years. What we have done is to adjust it to refer to a new section 4A. The rest of the section has been there for a long time.

Mr Ling How Doong says - how to prevent it? Easy, just don't get involved when you know one of your gang members has a gun on him, because the provision on accomplice says the court must be satisfied. That person will get the death penalty only if "each of his accomplices present at the scene ... who may reasonably be presumed to have known that that person was carrying or had in his possession" a gun. The court must be satisfied. If the court is not satisfied that he had known, thence no offence. So the best way of preventing it is not that he was in a car and he could not physically prevent it.

The whole idea of this accomplice provision is: do not get involved if you know one of your gang members has got a gun. And I think that has been a salutary provision in bringing about the low incidence of guns.

In response to Mr Zulkifli, apart from what I mentioned, I should also point out the other safeguard is that he would not have committed an offence involving the death penalty if the accomplice proves that he had taken all reasonable steps to prevent the use of such arm, not after the crime is committed of course. For all practical purposes, it must be that he should have dissuaded the use of a gun before the robbery.

Mr Ling How Doong: Can I clarify one point?

Mr Speaker: All right. A brief clarification.

Mr Ling How Doong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I raised this point simply because the Minister has said that it is to prevent an accomplice going out with somebody armed. But, then, why is it in this particular amendment it mentions the fact that "unless he proves that he had taken all reasonable steps to prevent the use of such arm"? I can understand if the provision states an accomplice will suffer the same consequence. But when you have this section incorporated, it means clearly you can go out with somebody who is armed but you must prevent him from firing. That is why I do not understand this section which says that "unless he proves that he had taken all reasonable steps to prevent the use of such arm". The Minister had earlier mentioned the fact that this is to prevent an accomplice or someone going out with somebody who is armed. Then why incorporate this section? It gives you the impression that going out with someone armed is all right. But if he wants to fire, you must prevent him from firing. That is the point I do not understand.

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am not sure whether he wants those provisions to be deleted. But, obviously, there must be a safeguard for the accomplice provision. It is reasonable to impose this penalty on an accomplice if he had knowledge that the offender was carrying the arm or had in his possession or under his control such arm. Next, should he suffer the death penalty? This is not a new section. It is an existing provision. So I have not changed that at all. This is what the legislature had enacted many years ago, and, I think, very wisely. He shall suffer the death penalty unless he proves that he had taken all reasonable steps to prevent the use of such arm. I think that is a reasonable position unless Mr Ling wants to remove that safeguard.

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]

Clauses 1 and 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 -

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon: Sir, I beg to move,

In page 2, line 26, to leave out "death" and insert "life imprisonment".

At the risk of repeating myself, I am afraid that Mr Choo has completely misunderstood what I was saying. I am not on the side of the bad guys. In fact, the people I am concerned with are specifically victims of kidnaps and police officers when they have got resisting arrest cases.

I agree entirely with what the Hon. Minister says that most of these offences are committed on the spur of the moment and with the intent to hurt people, because otherwise you do not carry a gun. But there are certain situations, I think, where the discharge is not meant to injure anyone. If you have a situation like that, and it is a kidnapping situation, remember you have condemned the victim of the kidnapping to death because the kidnappers no longer have anything to lose. This is the problem. If the kidnappers have a change of heart and they say, let us surrender and let the victim go, the court has no discretion any more. It is mandatory death sentence once the gun has gone off, even if it has gone off accidentally. If they shot to kill, shot to injure, then that is not a problem. But in those situations where they did not mean to injure or to kill, you basically finish the victim off. Ditto with the resisting arrest cases. The gun goes off accidentally while they are resisting arrest. The next shot must be aimed to kill, because they no longer have anything to lose.

I believe that the amendment proposed to section 4 is more than sufficient. Once you have a presumption and the defendant has to rebut that presumption, in 99 cases out of 100, he will not be able to rebut the presumption and you will have your death penalty. But in that 1% of cases, a small percentage, where it can be shown that no intention to cause death or injury was present, should there be a mandatory death penalty? This, I think, is where the Minister and I diverge. Is it the shooting per se or the intention that we are concerned with? If you say it is the discharge per see that deserves death, then, fine, the amendment should go through. If you think the discharge per se is not sufficient to warrant death but sufficient to warrant a serious punishment by life imprisonment, then I do not think the amendment as proposed by the Minister should go through.

Prof. Jayakumar: Sir, in addition to the points which I made earlier on why I cannot accept this amendment, let me point out that we have a parallel with the Misuse of Drugs Act. For years, we have had mandatory death penalty if a drug trafficker is caught in possession beyond 15 grams of heroin. We do not ask for the prosecution to prove that he had an intention to give this drug to so and so. It is death penalty because such a large amount of drugs cannot be for purposes of his consumption. This is well-known among drug trafficking syndicates. The signal has gone out. So the drug trafficking syndicates know it before they try their luck in Singapore.

Secondly, his argument will also mean that by 15 grams, or whatever other threshold, you are encouraging the drug traffickers to traffic in 20 grams, 50 grams, 100 grams because the punishment is the same. It does not work that way. What we want is a signal that goes out very clearly that in Singapore we have probably one of the world's toughest gun control law. That is the crux of the question. Do we want that or not to protect our society and our people? And I would urge the House to view it from that point of view. In any case, as I pointed out, if we adopt Prof. Walter Woon's amendment, it in fact makes the penalty exactly the same for a person who had it on his person when committing a scheduled offence and such a person drawing and firing it. I think it cannot be right in law, logic or in policy that the penalty should be the same.

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon: Mr Speaker, I do not think the analogy with a drug case is exact because, in the case of drugs, we are not putting at risk anyone in a sense. What I am concerned with, as I have pointed out, are those cases, like kidnapping, abduction and resisting arrest, which are in a sense unique to this kind of problem. If the Minister feels very strongly that he must punish people who just discharge the gun no matter for what purpose, then so be it. But all I am saying is that we have to think very carefully about this because, if some day, you do find that a kidnapped victim or a police officer loses his life because of this, I think that would be a very unfortunate thing indeed.

Prof. Jayakumar: Mr Speaker, Sir, I do not think that really is in point because this is a very strong recommendation from the Police themselves.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 4 and 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

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