PARLIAMENT (PRIVILEGES, IMMUNITIES AND POWERS) (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read. 6.00 pm

The Minister for Home Affairs (Mr Wong Kan Seng): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, this is a straightforward Bill. It makes two amendments to the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act (Cap 217). Their objectives are to simplify procedures under the Act and avoid duplication of effort and risk of conflicts between Parliament and the Courts. The first amendment facilitates the recovery of fines imposed by Parliament in exercise of its penal jurisdiction. The second amendment improves procedures to allow Parliament to deal more expeditiously with contempt if one of its committees has already investigated into the matter.

Recovery of fines

Let me deal with the first amendment on recovery of fines. Currently, section 23(2) of the Act provides that fines imposed by Parliament have to be sued for in a civil Court first before they could be recovered from the errant party. This procedure is not satisfactory as it wastes the Court's time and incurs unnecessary cost for the State.

Section 23 of the Act does not define the role which the Court should play in presiding over a suit to recover the fines as a civil debt. If the Court's role is merely to formalise the fine imposed by Parliament into a judgement, it is an unnecessary duplication of work. If it enables the person fined to contest the legality of the fine, it would amount to allowing the Court to overrule the decision of Parliament. The law should avoid any possible conflict between Parliament and the Courts. For this reason, our Courts have held that Parliament has the right to control its own proceedings and regulate its own internal affairs without interference from the Courts.

Clause 3 of the Bill amends section 23 of the Act to make any fine imposed by Parliament recoverable as though it is a judgement debt due to the Government, that is to say, a sum of money ordered by a Court as payable.

With the amendment, it would no longer be necessary to first sue for the fine before recovering it. Writs of execution as well as bankruptcy proceedings may immediately be instituted if the offender fails to pay up the fine imposed by Parliament by the due date. The amendment would facilitate the recovery of fines by the Attorney-General on behalf of the State.

Contempt

I now come to the second amendment on contempt. Currently, under section 21(1) and (2) of the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act, Parliament can deal with incidents of contempt in the following ways:

(a) deal summarily with the offender;

(b) refer the matter to a Select Committee for investigation and report; or

(c) refer the matter to the Attorney-General with a view to instituting criminal proceedings against the person.

Where the matter is referred to a Select Committee, Parliament on receiving the Select Committee's report, has the further option of either dealing with the offender itself or referring the matter to the Attorney-General with a view to prosecution.

The option to refer the matter to the Attorney-General with a view to prosecution in Court after a Select Committee has dealt with it is unnecessary. It has no discernible benefit and only lengthens the process. Parliament already has the power to punish for contempt. This is a proper exercise of parliamentary authority. The punishments are set out in the Act. This option is also circuitous as Parliament could have in the first place referred the matter to the Attorney-General instead of to a Select Committee. It is better for Parliament to deal expeditiously with the matter after the Select Committee produces its Report.

The option could also result in uneasy relations between Parliament and the Judiciary. This arises when the matter is referred to the Attorney-General with a view to prosecution after a Select Committee has already investigated into the matter. Police investigations would have to be carried out afresh. There could be the possibility that, at the end of the day, the Courts may rule that no offence of contempt has been committed despite Parliament's decision to send the matter to the Attorney-General with a view to prosecution. The principle that any possible conflict between the Courts and Parliament should be avoided is applicable here. As I have said earlier, our Courts have held that Parliament has the right to control its own proceedings and regulate its internal affairs without interference from the Courts.

In addition, the rationale for referring cases to the Attorney-General with a view to prosecution is no longer relevant. This bifurcated procedure was introduced in 1962 when Parliament was then expressly prohibited by the Act from exercising powers of committal, ie, imprisonment. Also, the penalties that the Courts could mete out for offences under the Act were then much higher. It was therefore necessary then to retain an avenue to the Courts so that the higher penalties could be handed down by the Courts in appropriately bad cases involving contempt based on the Select Committee's Report. In 1986, the Act was amended to confer on Parliament the power to commit persons for contempt and to fine them up to $50,000. With these enhanced powers to deal with contempt, Parliament would no longer need to refer such cases for prosecution.

Clause 2 of the Bill amends section 21 of the Act to remove the option of referring a complaint of contempt to the Attorney-General for prosecution if that complaint has already been the subject of investigation by a Select Committee.

The amendments would, however, not remove from Parliament the power to refer a matter directly to the Attorney-General with a view to prosecution where it is considered more appropriate for the offender to be dealt with by the Courts. Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Simon Tay: Sir, the privileges of debate in this House against defamation and other proceedings in court are well known and enjoyed by Members here. This is very important because this Chamber should be open to all ideas, free of the chilling effect of possible legal suit. Less well-known, Sir, is the fact that these privileges are extended in a qualified manner to members of the public, ordinary citizens, who choose to speak before our Select Committees. This is confirmed by the case of Sivadas.

The present amendments now try to reconcile, as the Minister has said, a possible clash between the courts, on the one hand, and this House, on the other. I think that, in principle, this is correct. As far as Members of Parliament go, I have no objections. We, as Members of Parliament, whether elected, nominated, NCMPs, should know the rules. My concern relates more to non-MPs, non-Members of the House, who choose to come before the House to provide their opinion in Select Committee affairs. In such cases, if the House should choose to decide to cite such persons for contempt, Parliament would be in effect a judge in its own cause. The hearings would not necessarily be public and this House, if I may say, is clearly numerically dominated by one party. For such people, members of the public, I think we have to ask ourselves whether they know the kind of possibilities that face them when they come before a Select Committee. I do not, of course, mean that they should shy away from doing their citizens' duties. But I would encourage the Minister, in moving this amendment, to follow this up with the assistance of the Speaker in providing more information to those who come before Select Committees.

Secondly, the question then comes off: would these members of the public be better off being judged by the courts? I think that is not necessarily the case because the court itself, as the Minister has said, has decided that this House should be the judge of its own proceedings, its own internal affairs. But I would caution the House in reaching this conclusion, the decision of the court related to a Member of Parliament, and not a member of the public.

As regards members of the public who come before this House and might commit contempt and might therefore be subject to proceedings by this House, I would encourage this House to be, first, judicious and sparing in the use of its powers when we close off the possible avenue of using the courts and, second, liberal in recognising the right of ordinary citizens to speak and give their opinions before this House in its Select Committee meetings, even if it disagrees with the sentiments, provided of course that such sentiments do not amount to gross contempt.

With that, Sir, I support the Bill.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think Mr Tay is concerned about strangers coming before a Select Committee and not knowing the rules on how to conduct themselves and whether the freedom to speak before a Committee is being conscribed, just because they do not know the rules. Let me assure him that he need not have such worry.

At the beginning, when the Clerk of Parliament advertises in the press asking for submissions, he has already warned would-be representors that they should not publish any evidence or documents they have given to the Select Committee before the Select Committee finalises its report. That is in one of the paragraphs in the advertisement.

When a person comes before a Select Committee, we treat him very gently, kindly and considerately. We do not brow beat or shout at him. We treat him like any member of the public who wants to give his views to us and we welcome his views. It is only when he has started to wander around and not follow the rules that the Speaker would definitely try to put the person back and say, "Look, that is not the way to do things. Please let me give you some advice. Do not stray beyond the point. Tell us the truth and be honest about it."

If Members remember the case of Dr Chee Soon Juan, in one of our Select Committee hearings, he talked about health care costs and presented papers and data. Eventually, that matter led to a complaint to the Committee of Priviledges. Even at that Committee of Privileges, he was given a lot of leeway by the Chairman of the Committee. But in the end, he decided to carry on with his way and resulted in him and his other colleagues being fined by Parliament for committing perjury and fabrication of data, etc. So anyone who comes before a Select Committee, we will be very kind to him. We will guide him and the Chairman would give him a lot of leeway before he makes further mistakes. So we need not worry about strangers not being able to speak freely before a Select Committee.

As Members know, whatever evidence they give to a Select Committee is also protected by the privileges of the Act, and in the case of Sivadas, as Mr Tay mentioned, he wrote a submission to the Select Committee on the Companies (Amendment) Bill and he made many comments. As a result, some people took him to court. He finally petitioned to the Petitions Committee which decided to leave it to the Court. The Court decided that his submission is protected under the privileges of the Act and therefore the plaintiff lost the case. So the public can be rest assured that if they speak up, they should not fear that their views will be conscribed.

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. - [Mr Wong Kan Seng].

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