POLICE FORCE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

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

Sir, before 1st October 2001, there were two principal schemes of service in the Internal Security Department (ISD), namely, the Intelligence Service and Senior Police Officers Scheme.

The presence of police officers in ISD is something which was carried over from the Department's Police Special Branch since 1948. These police officers' main duties are to conduct investigations which require police powers. The existence of different service schemes in the Department is not ideal. It gave rise, over time, to issues of internal relativities, as each scheme has its own terms and conditions of service.

Last year, ISD decided to combine the two schemes of service into one, the Intelligence Service. A conversion exercise was carried out and serving senior police officers were invited to be emplaced on the Intelligence scheme of service. This enables the Department to attract, retain and develop suitable and capable officers and manage their careers. More than 94% of the senior police officers took up the offer and were converted to the Intelligence scheme of service with effect from 1st October last year.

Sir, this Bill proposes amendments to the Police Force Act to enable officers, who perform investigation duties, to continue to do so with the necessary police powers which they had before the conversion into the Intelligence scheme of service. The purposes of the amendments are as follows:

(a) to confer on designated intelligence officers the police powers of investigation under the Criminal Procedure Code or any other written law as the Minister may prescribe by notification in the Gazette;

(b) to provide immunities for these officers relating to acts done under the authority of a warrant. This is similar to the protection afforded to all police officers; and

(c) to confer on senior police intelligence officers the powers of an Assistant Superintendent of Police or a Superintendent of Police under such written law as the Minister may prescribe by notification in the Gazette. This is to allow these officers to exercise certain provisions under the Internal Security Act. For example, an officer of the rank of ASP and above can detain a person for up to 48 hours from the time of arrest. An officer of the rank of Superintendent and above can authorise further detention of up to 28 days. Beyond 28 days of detention, the Minister for Home Affairs has to grant approval.

Sir, the intelligence officers to be designated are those doing work that require police powers of investigation and will include former police officers who converted to the Intelligence Service. This enables the officers to continue to carry out their operational and investigative duties effectively, even after they have converted to the Intelligence Service.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang): Mr Speaker, Sir, I understand that the proposed amendments to the Act will effectively give absolute discretion to the Minister in deciding which intelligence officers will be conferred powers equivalent to those of a Police Inspector or ASP. Also, in the Minister's discretion, these officers would be deemed to be police officers under the ISA. These discretionary powers include appointment of intelligence officers who are not former police officers.

Sir, police powers are very wide. In the context of investigations, these include powers to arrest, summon witnesses for the recording of statements, compel banks to produce confidential financial statements of their customers, walk into premises upon suspicion of certain offences and seize properties, etc. There are some areas of concern.

First of all, will there be officers without police training who will be conferred police powers? If this is so, my question is: why is there a need to extend these powers to those without police training and experience? Are they qualified to exercise such powers, which have a great potential to be used as a repressive tool? Can we not restrict officers who can be gazetted to former police officers who have crossed over to the Intelligence Service?

Second, should their conferred police powers be commensurate with the rank structure? I am of the view that there should be some restrictions on the equivalent ranks of intelligence officers who can exercise equivalent powers. The Criminal Procedure Code sets qualifying ranks to exercise certain powers, for example, recording of statements from suspects can only be done by Sergeants and above, and compelling banks to supply confidential information can only be done by an Inspector, etc. By allowing a blanket provision and conferring the powers of an Inspector to the officers that the Minister can designate, are we not potentially allowing for a situation where the Minister can designate officers who are very junior and inexperienced or ill-trained to exercise such wide powers? This may, in fact, undermine the integrity of Government as well.

Another concern is: how is the public protected from the abuse of powers by these intelligence officers? For police officers, the procedure for the public to complain against abuse of authority or malpractices is clear. One can sue, make a complaint which may lead to disciplinary proceedings before the Police Disciplinary Board. If there is a grievance against an intelligence officer exercising those police powers, what would be the channel of public recourse? The Act is not amended to subject intelligence officers to the same disciplinary process.

Dr Wang Kai Yuen: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am a bit concerned about the Minister changing this Act to empower the intelligence officers just because the scheme of service has been changed. Perhaps, it would have been better to change the scheme of service to attract the officers as intelligence officers without changing the law.

Sir, I am also quite concerned that, in my mind, we are a bit confused about what are intelligence officers and police officers. To me, police officers are law enforcement officers. They are well-trained and understand the law very well. Whereas, in the general public's mind, intelligence officers can be considered as spies. That is what the public thinks. We are a bit concerned as to why we should designate intelligence officers and give them the powers of police officers when it can be done otherwise. The other point has already been brought up by Mr Low.

Mr Wong Kan Seng: I think the underlying concern in the two Members' question is: why do we now need to give intelligence officers such police powers? The Members may not have understood what I was just talking about.

Before 1st October 2001, intelligence officers were confined to those civilians in the ISD. And we have, on secondment from the police force, a certain number of senior police officers who perform investigative and operational duties. For these police officers, because they are already police officers, they have powers of investigation like other police officers. What we try to do in this exercise is to provide for one scheme of service so that, while we have two groups of officers working in the same department, maybe doing the same job, they do not have the inequitable position whereby one has a higher salary than the other, and one has a different rate of progression than the other, and so on. That is good for morale because if we have only one scheme of service, then everybody progresses, depending on performance, instead of depending on their scheme of service. We have situations where police officers in ISD thought that they do not advance as fast as those officers working in the Singapore Police Force. We want to avoid this kind of situation and therefore provide for a common scheme of service in the Intelligence Service.

The purpose of this amendment is not to grant all intelligence officers police powers although the Minister may designate who to grant such powers. By "designate", it just means that so and so officer is given police powers to perform his operational and investigative duties. Will the Minister so blindly appoint any person, a junior person, which is Mr Low's concern, to be a senior police officer performing those duties if he is not trained? I think it will be foolish of any Minister for Home Affairs or any department head of ISD to make such a recommendation. Certainly, the concern of abuse may arise if people are not trained, if they do not know their duties and if they think that just because they have police powers, they can arrest or detain and search anyone and go into anybody's house. That is not the state of affairs in our Intelligence Service, nor is it the state of affairs in our police force.

Let me assure Members and others who may feel that way that not all intelligence officers are given such powers. Only those who are currently performing investigation and operational duties, and they were former police officers who have converted into the Intelligence scheme of service, will be so designated.

In future, we will recruit directly into the Intelligence Service. What happens to these new officers in the Intelligence Service who are not trained as police officers? It is just like our Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers. They are given police powers but they go through the training of a police officer to make sure that they understand the Penal Code, the Evidence Act, the Criminal Procedure Code and all relevant laws that are necessary for them to perform their duties. Similarly, for intelligence officers, in future, if they are recruited into the Intelligence Service, but they do not have a police officer's background, they will be sent for training before they will be appointed to perform such a duty. No Minister will be foolish enough to allow anyone to abuse his powers.

What is the channel of complaint? Like all civil servants, they are subject to disciplinary rules and proceedings. They are subject to the Instructions Manual of the civil service. They are also subject to the laws of the land. If they, just because they have police powers and they are intelligence officers, they beat up somebody, whether in the course of duty or not, they can also be subject to investigations. There are proper channels of redress in these situations.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Further clarification, Sir. The Minister said that there is a proper channel of complaint. For the police, it is very clear. We know who to complain to. Can he tell us, in the case of intelligence officers, as they are not, by definition, police officers, if there is an abuse of powers, what is the channel of complaint?

Mr Wong Kan Seng: The channel of complaint must be to the Director of the Internal Security Department, like for police officers, the channel of complaint is to the Commissioner of Police. They are the appointing authority. There is no difference.

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.