Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law K. Shanmugam sits down with AsiaOne to explain the recent amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code. What are some of these amendments and should the public be concerned?
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00:00 So the essence of the changes is really how we can better protect the public
00:04 while also being fair and having proper safeguards.
00:26 There are significant changes in this round of CPC amendments. I would categorize them into
00:33 three main groups. The amendments to what kind of sentences the courts can give really to protect
00:38 the public against people who are a serious threat. For example, people who commit serious
00:44 crimes like rape, sexual assault against young girls. They go in into jail and then they come
00:50 out and they do it again. They attack other young girls. So we are proposing a type of sentence
00:55 called the Sentence for Enhanced Public Protection or SEPP, where after you serve out a minimum
01:03 sentence, let's say you've raped somebody and then you go in for a minimum sentence, at the time
01:07 you know the sentence is due to finish, experts will do a proper assessment on you
01:13 and they will assess whether you're going to continue to be a risk to society. If you're not
01:22 a risk, you can be released. If you are a risk, then you will continue to be in jail and your
01:29 case will be reviewed once a year. Second type of powers, updating and clarifying the powers of
01:36 police and other law enforcement agencies. For example, police powers of search in certain
01:41 circumstances. Let's say you're accused of committing a crime, accused of sexually assaulting
01:46 someone. Police can require you to undergo a forensic examination, give a DNA swap to see if
01:55 the DNA matches that found on the victim. But you cannot be forced if it's a DNA swap from
02:03 intimate body parts. But if you refuse to cooperate, there can be criminal consequences.
02:09 Third, to enhance our court processes. There are some changes to, you know, make the trial process
02:15 more transparent, fair, coherent. So the essence of the changes is really how we can better protect
02:22 the public while also being fair and having proper safeguards.
02:29 No, no, not because of that, you know, but we have been seeing some of these cases,
02:41 they're quite serious. We always review our policies, see how they can work better. And we
02:48 also study other countries. Some of the other countries have this SEPP type of sentence.
02:54 We thought that we should also introduce it. For example, let's take serious violence or
03:00 sexual crime. People can get killed, people can get seriously hurt, people can get raped,
03:07 and these are all very serious. And let me give you a real example. May of 2022,
03:13 a man was sentenced because he had sexually assaulted two of his grandnieces. It's really
03:20 quite terrible. Before that, he had been previously convicted for statutory rape
03:24 of his six-year-old stepdaughter. So he attacked his six-year-old stepdaughter. He had been
03:30 convicted. Then he assaulted his grandnieces, right? Predator. So in 2001, he was sentenced
03:39 to imprisonment and caning, but for good behavior and so on, he was released after 12 years in 2013.
03:47 Two years later, after his release, 2015, while living with his sister, he sexually attacked
03:54 one of the sister's granddaughters. She was 10 years old, living with them. He then moved on
04:00 to her younger sister, another granddaughter in 2017, and started sexually assaulting her too.
04:07 And she was at nine at the time. So these girls, nine, 10, they are living in the same household.
04:12 This is like an authority figure, grand uncle, and he's assaulting them. They are
04:22 totally vulnerable. And this is after all his earlier records. The court noted that his risk
04:28 of sexual re-offending was high and that he disregarded the consequences of his actions.
04:34 He had been caned, he had been jailed. So under the existing law, when these kinds of offenders
04:41 have finished their sentences, they have to be released unconditionally, even if they are still
04:46 of high risk and they are going to go and attack somebody else tomorrow, the day after their
04:50 release. So when they go on to re-offend, it's another life, completely and tragically
04:58 disastrously affected. Let me give you another example. Just, I think, two to three weeks ago,
05:04 a man was sentenced to 29 and a half years of jail and 24 strokes of the cane for raping his niece
05:12 when she was seven. He then continued his sexual assault for four more years against a girl. She
05:19 was sexually assaulted almost every week. You really ask which young girl or lady or woman
05:28 needs to undergo this sort of treatment? SEPP is our response. So let's see how this will work in
05:34 these cases. The court finds that this man has repeatedly raped or sexually assaulted young
05:42 people or young girls or women, you know, or otherwise comes to the conclusion that the court
05:48 really can't tell whether 12 years, 15 years, 20 years is going to be enough because at the end of
05:54 the period, he may or may not continue to be at risk. If the court thinks that and that he may
06:00 well later on be at risk, these are all assessments. The court can say, well, based on the facts,
06:08 I'm just going to impose a normal sentence. Or if the court thinks that really there has to be an
06:13 assessment at the end of the sentence period, the court can say, I impose an SEPP sentence.
06:19 When the judge decides that SEPP is more appropriate, what the judge is saying is,
06:25 I send you to jail for eight years. At the end of eight years, I want experts to look at you
06:31 and decide whether you are going to be fit to be released or whether you're going to continue to be
06:36 at risk and how much risk would you be posing to the community. The decision on whether to release
06:42 him, it will be made by the minister, but based on expert viewpoints, assessing the expert
06:47 viewpoints. If the person in jail, offender, no longer poses a high risk to society, he can be
06:54 released. But if he continues to pose a risk, then he can continue to be detained. The case will then
07:01 be reviewed every year. If the judge sentences someone to SEPP, what he's really saying is,
07:14 this person, I think, needs to be assessed at the end of the sentence I'm imposing. You know,
07:20 it can actually be in such a case that the judge may impose a shorter sentence, because if you
07:25 don't have SEPP, the judge might think to himself, I better not take a risk. Let me impose a longer
07:32 sentence. But with SEPP, the judge knows, well, I can impose a shorter sentence. And at the end of
07:37 the period, let's see what the assessment is. As for the parameters of the assessment, experts will
07:45 look at and put up reports and the minister will then decide. This will include independent risk
07:53 assessment. We now are thinking in terms of IMH, but the details will have to be worked out.
07:58 Prisons will also put up a report and will look at the possibilities of rehabilitation.
08:06 They would assess how his behavior has been. And there is an incentive for the prisoner,
08:12 the person in jail, to actually reform, because if he works on his reform and he works on his
08:21 rehabilitation together with prisons, then he is likely to be released earlier. He knows that
08:25 there is something for him to work towards. I think those concerns are unfounded. If you look
08:39 at the bill, the power under the proposed section 34 is to search a place in order to investigate
08:46 a specific arrestable offense and where the police believe that the item they are looking for
08:52 related to the investigation is likely to be in the possession or control of the suspect.
08:59 So it's not just random searches.
09:10 It's always a balance. You have the rights of the individual, you have the rights of society,
09:17 the police, if they reasonably believe there is likely to be the evidence in this place,
09:24 then surely you would want them to investigate. Most often they are right. Sometimes, you know,
09:30 they don't find the evidence, but that's a balance that you strike. You can't say,
09:34 "Oh, unless they find the evidence, they shouldn't be searching." That's putting the
09:39 cart before the horse. These amendments are more technical. It's really lawyers who will be
09:53 looking at those, but they are important and needed. We are really codifying, meaning we
09:57 are putting into rules a process so that it's very clear now. Everybody understands what the
10:04 process will be, and we did extensive consultations with lawyers as well as the public.