Review of "Public Servant" Definition in Penal Code and Singapore's Anti-corruption Laws following Conviction of Former Minister

Ms Sylvia Lim asked the Prime Minister and Minister for Finance whether the definition of "public servant" under the Penal Code is fit for purpose for an offence under section 165 of the Penal Code.

In view of former Minister S Iswaran's court conviction, various Members in this House, including Ms Sylvia Lim, Mr Yip Hon Weng and Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim, have asked about the application of section 165 of the Penal Code and its impact on the wider Public Service.

My response today will also address the questions by Mr Yip Hon Weng1,2 and Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim3, which are scheduled for subsequent Sittings. I invite Members to seek clarifications, if need be. If the questions have been answered satisfactorily, it may not be necessary for Members to proceed with their Parliamentary Questions for future Sittings.

Mr Speaker, Sir, let me first set the context. We expect individuals in the Public Service to uphold high standards of conduct and this expectation extends to individuals carrying out functions on behalf of the Government, even if not directly employed by the Government. This is important to preserve the integrity of our Public Service, so as to maintain public confidence and trust.

Section 165 of the Penal Code is one of the legislative levers that are part of the wider system of checks and balances to combat corruption in the public sector. For an offence to be made out under section 165 of the Penal Code, the following conditions need to be met.

First, section 165 applies only to public servants. This generally includes public officers under the employment of the Public Service and various individuals executing public duties on behalf of the Government. Second, the public servant must have accepted or obtained a valuable thing for free or for inadequate payment. Third, the valuable thing must be accepted or obtained from a person whom the public servant personally knows to have been, or to be, or to be likely to be concerned in any business transaction connected to the public servant's official functions or where the business is transacted by the public servant in relation to his duties.

In this context, a business transaction would commonly take the form of legal contract that is being negotiated or actively performed, applications for permits, licences and exemptions and ongoing investigations or assessments by Government agencies.

With these as background, let me address some specific questions raised by Members of this House.

First, Ms Sylvia Lim asked if the definition of "public servant" under the Penal Code is fit for purpose for an offence under section 165 of the Penal Code. Public servants carry out a wide range of functions on behalf of the Government. The definition of "public servant" in the Penal Code is broad, so as to cover individuals who are entrusted with these public duties.

I should also point out to Members of this House that being deemed as "public servants" under the Penal Code also offers the individuals protection when they are carrying out their public duties because there are specific provisions under the Penal Code that make offences more serious when committed against a public servant. Section 332 of the Penal Code, voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from his duty, is one example. Under this provision, the offender will face a higher penalty than if he had committed the offence of voluntarily causing hurt against an ordinary member of the public, with all other things being equal.

We expect high standards of conduct from all public servants. Accepting or obtaining gifts from a person whom the public servant knows to be concerned in business transacted by that public servant or having a connection with that public servant's official functions is not acceptable in Singapore's context. Otherwise, public confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the Government would be undermined. This is also the ethos Singaporeans would expect of leaders in all organisations, whether private or public.

Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim asked about the review of Chapter 9 of the Penal Code. We review our laws regularly. The Ministry of Home Affairs is still reviewing whether and, if so, how, to port over certain provisions of Chapter 9 of the Penal Code to the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA).

Mr Yip Hon Weng and Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim have asked whether section 165 of the Penal Code may deter individuals and top talents from the private sector from joining or contributing to the Public Service. Individuals from the private sector who are serving as Chairpersons or Board Directors on our Statutory Boards play an important role in building resilient and effective public sector organisations. I do not think our rules would deter good people from joining our boards.

On the contrary, if we do not have an ethos or system that ensures clean, honest government, we would not be able to attract the right people from the private sector to join us. I would also like to assure our Chairpersons and Board Directors that if they act professionally and with integrity, they have nothing to fear.

Ms Sylvia Lim has asked about the impact of recent developments on public trust and whether our anti-corruption laws have to be reviewed. However stringently we act against corruption, from time to time, individuals might fall short. When this happens, we should not have a knee-jerk reaction and immediately tighten or add more rules. Instead, we ask ourselves whether it was an individual or systematic matter.

If the rules were clear, but were flouted or ignored, what we need to do is not to adjust the rules, but to take decisive action against the offender. If the rules were unclear, we should clarify or simplify the rules. If the rules were too lax or it was a new situation not envisaged or covered by the rules, we should update the rules.

As I explained to Members of this House in February 2024, maintaining the integrity of our system is a multi-pronged and continuous effort. At the individual level, we must have the right ethos and values, understand both the spirit and letter of the rules and uphold them. At the team or organisation-level, we must look out for one another to minimise the chances of us being compromised, subverted or succumbing to human frailties. At the system level, we must have regular internal audits, external audits and have institutions like the Auditor-General's Office and Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) to respond to issues not picked up by other layers of checks.

The recent developments show that we do not shy away from doing the right thing to uphold the trust that Singaporeans have in the Government and this is what we will continue to do.

Thank you, Speaker. On my Question No 33 on the case itself, I have three questions for the Minister.

Broadly, these questions surround my observation that the handling of this case has actually raised more questions than it has answered. And I would like to ask three specific questions to see if Minister will agree with me on this.

The first question is, we all remember the damaging headlines in the middle of last year and how the former Minister was subsequently barred from Government buildings and charged under the PCA. But on the first day of the trial in September, the charges were suddenly reduced to non-corruption cases. So, would the public be justified to conclude that the corruption case against the former Minister was weak, hence, resulting in the reduction of charges, away from PCA?

The second question is, because of the former Minister pleading guilty, there was no trial. So, the evidence was not tested as such in the Court, but there was a plea bargain behind closed doors. Does the Minister agree that such a way of handling the case under a plea bargain has now given rise to a lot of speculation in the public sphere as to what precisely happened on the facts and also between the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) and the Defence? I am just asking a factual question.

Third, at the sentencing stage of the case, the Judge decided to impose a sentence of imprisonment that was double what the Prosecution had asked for. He, in fact, noted that what the Prosecution asked for was manifestly inadequate. I have had residents come to me on this point to express their doubts as to whether the Public Prosecutor had defended the public interest adequately in this case.

So, these are my three questions. On Question No 33, part (b), on the PCA review, I do agree with the Minister that we should not have knee-jerk reactions. That I agree. In fact, I was prompted to ask this question because it was the AGC's response when asked by the media on why the charges were reduced against the Minister, where they mentioned that there were litigation risks involved in proceeding against PCA. To quote them, what they said was, both the giver and the receiver of the gratification have a common interest to deny the corrupt element and, hence, it was risky to proceed.

But does the Minister agree that actually this has not prevented prosecutions under the PCA in such scenarios, where both parties actually deny corruption? Prosecutions in other cases have proceeded. And based on what the AGC has indicated, is this a reason for the Government to look again into PCA?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I will make two sets of responses in response to Ms Sylvia Lim's comments.

Ms Lim, as a lawyer, would know very well that it is not uncommon for charges to be amended on their way to the Courts because of developments or representations by the Prosecution and the defendant. So, it is not odd because such things do happen regularly in the Courts.

The second part of the first comment is on sentencing. We need to make a distinction between what the Prosecutor asked for and the Judge's discretion to mete out the sentence. So, these two are quite separate and we should not conflate the two.

My second set of comments on the PCA review, I think Minister Shanmugam has also said this before as to whether and if there is a need for us to align the section 165 with the PCA in a different formulation, that we can consider. As of now, suffice to say that CPIB and our enforcement agencies find the current framing is able to allow us to do the job that we need to do. But going forward, if there are new developments that necessitate us to do a review of this, we are open to that.

Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister for his reply. I have two supplementary questions.

First, how does the Ministry ensure that the public perception of incidents like the recent case does not inadvertently narrow the range of candidates willing to serve, particularly those who may have offered different perspectives due to a private sector background?

My second supplementary question pertains to this. Given that many private sector professionals are accustomed a different business culture, how does the Ministry plan to ensure that the existing measures for navigating potential conflicts of interests are aligned with these cultural norms while at the same time maintaining public confidence?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I will make two comments in response to the two supplementary questions.

First, I will be very careful to not overplay the difference in the business culture and the Public Service culture when it comes to corruption. We are all Singaporeans and the international community knows that, in Singapore, we have clear rules and I would not want to suggest that somehow the private sector has a different set of rules or culture that is so different from the public sector. So, that is my first point.

On the second point, does this affect the public perception on whether good people will want to join us? This is precisely the point that I mentioned in my reply. If our rules are not clear, if our execution of the rules are not clear and decisive, it will deter good people from wanting to join us. We can see this in the experiences of other countries. When rules are not clear or when rules are clear but enforcements are not done properly, it will actually deter good people from joining both the Public Service as employees and for serving the Public Service even if they are not employees, like, for example, being on our boards.

Speaker, two further supplementary questions for the Minister. As he speaks on behalf of the Prime Minister, so these questions are actually directed at certain things the Prime Minister has said about the case.

When the former Minister was charged in January this year, Prime Minister Wong said, and I quote, "CPIB has done a thorough investigation. They have left no stone unturned. They have dug deep and wide and they have presented their full investigations to the AGC. The AGC has decided to press charges against Mr Iswaran." So, nine months on, with the subsequent developments, I would like to ask whether it is still the Prime Minister's position that the CPIB and AGC did a thorough job in this case.

The second question, again, after the sentencing of the former Minister, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying that we need to act against corruption. But noting that the former Minister was not actually convicted of corruption, is the Prime Minister actually saying that regardless of the charges that were preferred and, finally, the former Minister was convicted on, he thinks that the former Minister acted corruptly?

Mr Speaker, Sir, I will make two comments in response.

First, on the second point, section 165 is a corruption charge. [Interruption.]

*An hon Member: It is not a corruption charge.*

It applies to the public officers, but it is a corruption charge.

Second comment, do we have reasons to believe that CPIB and AGC did their job? Yes, we have reasons to believe that they have done their job properly. But as I have mentioned and explained, along the way, it is not uncommon for the Prosecution and the Defence to see how the situation develops and, sometimes, charges may be amended in this situation or in any other cases.

Mr Speaker, Sir, let me clarify that. The difference between the PCA and section 165 is as follows: in section 165, you do not need to prove a quid pro quo on both sides. You just need to prove that the person has taken. It does not mean that it is not a corruption charge.