HEAD B - ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S CHAMBERS

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Head B - Attorney-General's Chambers

The Chairman: Head B - Attorney-General's Chambers. We have a total of five minutes. Mr Chandra Mohan.

Criminal Prosecutorial System

Mr Chandra Mohan K Nair (Nominated Member): Sir, I beg to move,

That the total sum to be allocated for Head B of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100.

The criminal prosecutorial system in Singapore has worked reasonably well. There is, however, room for improvement. The process involves investigation by the Police and other appropriate enforcement agencies like the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, the Central Narcotics Bureau, the Customs Department, etc, once there is a first information report lodged by a complainant or victim of crime to any of these Government authorities.

Once the investigation is more or less completed, the Attorney-General's Chambers' Crime Division is consulted, that is, the Public Prosecutor or his deputies called Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) and they will consider the merits and demerits of the case and decide whether to charge the accused in court by giving his fiat or not to take any further action because there is no prima facie case or sufficient evidence to get a conviction in a court of law.

In the meantime, it would appear the accused has no right to see or obtain legal advice from his lawyer. He is not allowed to consult a lawyer until all the investigation is completed. In the meantime, he has been questioned and possibly interrogated and his cautioned

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statement and long statement recorded under the Criminal Procedure Code.

Having discussed with the legal fraternity, especially the Criminal Bar of the Law Society of Singapore, I am of the view that our system could be improved to meet international standards. We are now considered a first world nation - economically, we have reached this category and we can take pride in that. Let us now try and reach first world status in other aspects of life in Singapore, so that we can claim to be and take pride in being in the premier league and not lower divisions, including in the criminal prosecutorial system and the overall administration of criminal justice.

The recommendations I am proposing would, hopefully, reduce the manpower, time and costs to the Government.

I would like to propose that there be more transparency in Police and prosecutorial handling of criminal matters. The criminal discovery process should be revisited to make it fairer so that the truth of the case is arrived at and the main goal of prosecutorial work should be to arrive at the truth of the case and to assist the court in arriving at the truth. Therefore, all investigation papers should be made available to defence or to its counsel, especially cautioned statements and long statements, under section 122(5) and 122(6) of the Criminal Procedure Code. These are for statements of the accused. Cautioned statements of the accused are made available upon request and upon payment of a fee. Long statements are never or seldom given. They are often used to impeach the credit of the accused or witnesses for the defence but never the prosecution witnesses. This may be unfair and might affect the quality of truth. Why must one pay for his own statement? Cost must be reduced. When such statements are given to the accused or to his counsel, he would be able to

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decide at an early stage whether or not to plead guilty or claim trial. This would save money, cost and time for the Police, prosecutorial court and related parties.

I therefore propose that the Government form a committee comprising the legal fraternity, including the courts, AG's Chambers, Faculty of Law, Law Society, Ministry of Law and Police Force to review and recommend a better form of criminal justice system, including criminal prosecutorial system.

The other point I would like to make is the prosecutorial office ----

The Chairman: Mr Mohan, your time is almost up. Can you finish that sentence?

Mr Chandra Mohan K Nair: I am much obliged, Sir. DPP, as State Counsel, being officers in the Legal Service may be transferred to be part of the Subordinate Courts Judiciary and the more senior ones to be part of the Supreme Court Judiciary. This may create the impression, rightly or wrongly perceived, that they are one and the same and that may be unhealthy. Would it be preferable, Sir, that our criminal prosecutorial system requires that there be a separate judicial service, that is, Magistrates and District Judges come from this judicial service and not ones who are transferred from public prosecutorial office where Judiciary and members of Judiciary being transferred to DPPs. Our people and the international community must get the right impression that there is independence of our Judiciary.

The Chairman: Order, Mr Chandra Mohan.

The Senior Minister of State for Law (Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee): Mr Mohan has wandered all over the place in a very short time. But I think really the focus of what he says is that, in terms of our trial

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process, there should be more disclosure of documents to the defence. He also talks about international standards in the criminal justice system. But really there is no one international standard. I think every country has to find its own balance, for example, the balance between accused persons and prosecution, and also between investigation agencies and accused persons. So we are different from other countries like the UK and the US . But I take his point that our criminal justice system has, in fact, worked well.

On his particular point of disclosure of documents, I think he will know that for cases in the High Court, a preliminary inquiry (PI) is held in every case to determine whether the accused person should be tried in court. And it is at this PI that the prosecution presents its evidence to the court in the form of conditioned statements from its witnesses. Copies of these statements are given to the defence at least seven days before the PI. The defence also has the right to question the prosecution witnesses at the inquiry itself. For the Subordinate Courts, I think he would know that there are PTCs (pre-trial conferences) which have, since its introduction many years ago, become an integral feature of our criminal justice system. And here, it has been useful for case management, helping both parties, encouraging them to have more discovery to minimise surprises at trials. Indeed, in many cases, PTC is instrumental in an accused person's decision to plead guilty without going through the trial.

Therefore, I would say that our system ensures that the defence is provided with sufficient information of the prosecution case before going to trial. Nevertheless, the AGC, the Law Society, the Subordinate Courts and the Police are currently reviewing and exploring new ways of managing the conduct of criminal cases. One example is the criminal case management system which is undergoing

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evaluation. Under this system, the prosecution and defence can discuss the merits of the respective cases ---

The Chairman: 30 seconds, Prof. Ho.

Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee: --- and narrow down the issues of contention or reach an agreement on pre-bargaining before the first PTC. In addition, in amending the Criminal Procedure Code, we are considering the merits of the system where both prosecution and defence would be required to disclose the relevant evidence that they have in support and against the charges.

Mr Chandra Mohan K Nair: Sir, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $47,776,960 for Head B ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $592,000 for Head B ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.