CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE (Article 5(2A))

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon asked the Prime Minister if he will say when the Government intends to bring Article 5(2A) of the Constitution into operation.

The Deputy Prime Minister (BG Lee Hsien Loong) (for the Prime Minister): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Government amended the Constitution to create the institution of an Elected President in 1991. The Select Committee Report on the constitutional amendment Bill recommended that the new provisions should not be entrenched for two years, in order to give the Government a free hand to fine-tune the provisions during a running-in period. The Prime Minister, in his Third Reading speech to Parliament, endorsed the need for a running-in period but favoured more time, at least four years, to make the necessary modifications and refinements.

In August 1994, Parliament passed a set of amendments to the Elected President provisions in the Constitution. In my speech moving the Second Reading of that amendment, I stated:

"It is impossible, with a complex and novel piece of legislation like this, to foresee all consequences and implications of the provisions upfront. The three years we have operated the new provisions has enabled us to understand better how the mechanism operates, where the loopholes and ambiguities are, what is practicable and what needs to be modified in the light of experience. We have discovered that the Elected President mechanism is even more complex than we originally anticipated. It is extremely difficult to balance the Government's need for operational flexibility with the President's duty to exercise effective oversight. As we operate the mechanism day to day, we are still discovering implications of the provisions which we had not realised.

This will therefore not be the final set of amendments before we can safely entrench the Elected President provisions. A second and probably even a third round of amendments to fine-tune the provisions will be necessary. It will therefore be several more years before we entrench the provisions."

It is still the Government's position not to bring Article 5(2A) of the Constitution in force for several more years for the said reasons.

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon (Nominated Member): Will the Deputy Prime Minister please give some examples of problems that have arisen which necessitate this long postponement?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, we moved a set of amendments in Parliament in August last year and I gave a full explanation for the issues which arose -requirements for defence expenditure, loopholes which had been left in the original drafting, problems of the entrenchment mechanism, Article 22H, and so on. Those which we have identified, we have remedied, except Article 22H, which was pending and on which the Constitutional Tribunal has now ruled, and the Government will introduce legislation within the next six months to a year to put right. Others, we will discover as we go along. If we knew all the loopholes today, we would be able to fix them straightaway.

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon: Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that it is not the Government's intention to take back this gift, as the Attorney-General put it in his submission in that constitutional reference?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: I do not understand, Mr Speaker, what gift the Member is referring to.

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon: May I clarify, Mr Speaker?

Mr Speaker: Yes.

Assoc. Prof. Walter Woon: In his submission at the constitutional reference, the Attorney-General said that the Elected Presidency was a gift by the Government to the people. He did. You can read the report. Will the Government confirm that it is not its intention to take it back and reduce the power of the President to the point where he is just a figure-head as before?

BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, this Government introduced the Elected President mechanism as a safeguard to strengthen our constitutional scheme, to make sure that our reserves are well looked after and this whole system of government remains intact and with full integrity. We have to amend, revise and fine-tune the scheme as we go along. We would be out of our senses to dismantle it and throw it away.