STATUTES (MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS AND REPEAL) BILL

2.10 pm

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister of State for Law (Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, this Bill strings together a number of minor, and mainly technical amendments to several Acts. The amendments can be grouped into several categories which I will deal with in turn.

Repeal of obsolete Acts

The first set of amendments repeals a number of obsolete Acts. In 1999, the Attorney-General established a Committee to review outdated Acts with a view to repealing or, where appropriate, updating and re-enacting them. As a result of the work of the committee, Clause 13 of the Bill seeks to repeal :

(a) the Land Officers Powers Act;

(b) the Preservation of the Peace Act;

(c) the Prevention of Crimes Act; and

(d) the Tin and Tin-Ore (Disclosure of Smeltor's Stocks) Act.

The Land Officers Powers Act was enacted in 1926 to remove doubts as to the powers and duties of land officers under various statutes existing at the time because these land officers were referred to by different titles under different statutes. As the relevant legislation have all been modernised, no such doubts exist today. The Land Officers Powers Act is therefore no longer needed.

The Preservation of the Peace Act was enacted in 1872. It allows the Government, by proclamation, to vest Justices of Peace with certain emergency powers to preserve the peace. This is no longer necessary as sufficient provision has been made in other legislation like the Public Order (Preservation) Act.

The Prevention of Crimes Act was enacted in 1939. Some of its provisions are either obsolete or no longer consonant with modern penal laws, while other provisions are largely duplicative of provisions existing in other laws.

The Tin and Tin-Ore (Disclosure of Smeltor's Stocks) Act is obsolete as there are no more smelters in Singapore.

Amendment of Interpretation Act

The next set of amendments concerns the Interpretation Act. These amendments were proposed by the Attorney-General's Chambers to facilitate legislative drafting, mainly by including standard provisions for certain frequently occurring matters. For example, Clause 2(3) provides that where a written law is to come into operation on a day specified by notification, the notification may specify different days for different provisions.

Another situation is where provisions in Acts of Parliament contain examples and illustrations to show how the provisions are intended to work. A new section 7A is inserted into the Interpretation Act to make clear that these examples are not meant to be exhaustive, and are not intended to override the operative words of the provision.

Amendments to Motor Vehicles (Third-Party Risks and compensation) Act

Clause 9 amends the Motor Vehicles (Third-Party Risks and Compensation) Act for the better administration of that Act. Under this Act, the Public Trustee is tasked to watch over the interest of persons making claims against motorists and their insurers for personal injuries arising from traffic accidents. Section 6 of the Act requires all payments of compensation exceeding $5,000 to be made through the Public Trustee. If the Public Trustee considers the compensation payment to be inadequate, he can require the parties to submit the case to the courts for scrutiny.

The Act protects the interest of claimants by requiring lawyers acting on behalf of claimants to submit their charges to the courts for scrutiny. This is to ensure that the lawyers' charges are fair and reasonable. The Bill makes two adjustments to this system. First, the Bill makes it unnecessary for a lawyer to submit his charges for scrutiny by the courts if the Public Trustee agrees with the charges. This will result in savings in time and resources for the courts and the lawyers involved. Second, the Bill allows the Public Trustee to decide what charges the lawyer should claim if the lawyer fails to submit his charges for court scrutiny within three months after the compensation amount has been approved by the Public Trustee or fixed by a court. Delay by a lawyer in submitting his charges for court scrutiny means delay in the payment of compensation to his client. This is unfair to the client.

The Bill also empowers the Public Trustee to appear and argue in any court case involving a claim of compensation for personal injury arising from traffic accident. This will give the Public Trustee greater flexibility in fulfilling his role of protecting the interests of persons claiming such compensation.

Other Miscellaneous Amendments

To wrap up, I will take the House briefly through the remaining key provisions of the Bill.

Clause 4 amends the Legal Profession Act for two purposes. The first is to provide that foreign joint law ventures which are incorporated companies will be exempted from the requirement to carry the words "limited" or "private limited" in their names. This is a privilege which local law corporations currently enjoy. The second purpose is to enable rules to be made for the registration with the Attorney-General of all foreign lawyers practising in foreign law firms, Singapore law firms and joint law ventures. This is to widen the existing provision which is restricted to foreign lawyers resident in Singapore and practising in a foreign law firm.

Clause 5 amends the Medical Registration Act to allow a Magistrate's Court or a District Court to mete out the full penalties for offences under the Act. As the offences under the Medical Registration Act are regulatory in nature, such as unauthorised practice of medicine, it is more appropriate to prosecute such offences in the subordinate courts.

Clause 8 amends the Moneylenders Act to do away with the need for moneylenders to deposit copies of promissory notes with the Commissioner of Stamp Duties, as there are alternative sources of information.

Clause 11 amends the Securities Industry Act to ensure consistency between a criminal prosecution for insider trading under section 103 and an action under section 104A for civil penalty for insider trading. The amendment makes clear that the defence in section 103(11) applies to both types of action.

Clause 12 amends the Trade Marks Act to provide that a lawyer acting on behalf of a client is not liable for groundless threats of infringement proceedings. This will bring the Trade Marks Act in line with the Patents Act and the Registered Designs Act.

Lastly, the Bill amends the Air Navigation Act, the Monetary Authority of Singapore Act, and the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act to allow regulations to be made for the purpose of complying with obligations which are binding on Singapore under international agreements or by virtue of our membership of an international organisation. These provisions are modelled after similar provisions in the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore Act, the Telecommunications Act, the Postal Services Act, the Singapore Broadcasting Act and the Public Utilities Board Act.

Sir, I beg to move.

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. - [Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee].

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