Debated in Parliament on 23 Feb 2023.
Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan asked the Minister for Law whether an undischarged bankrupt is required to seek approval from the Ministry of Law or the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office before they can file an employment dispute to the Tripartite Alliance for Disputes Management.
Mr Speaker, an undischarged bankrupt is not required to seek the approval of the Official Assignee (OA) or a private trustee in bankruptcy, as the case may be, before he can file an employment claim at the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM).
If the mediation at the TADM is unsuccessful, the claimant will be issued with a claim referral certificate with which he may then file a claim at the Employment Claims Tribunals. If he chooses to do so, under the Bankruptcy Act or the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018, whichever is applicable, the bankrupt needs to apply to the OA or a private trustee in bankruptcy for a sanction. This requirement exists to protect the bankruptcy estate and hence, the interests of the bankrupt’s creditors, from costs that may be incurred by the bankrupt bringing or defending actions that are frivolous or legally unmeritorious.
Mr Patrick Tay.
I thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for her reply. I think this is this question emanated from a case which I encountered last month. One of the residents in my Pioneer single member constituency (SMC), who is an undischarged bankrupt, had salaries including overtime payments owing to him. And therefore, when he went and approached TADM, he was unable to take the matter further. As the Senior Parliamentary Secretary rightly pointed out, after mediation, he still needed the approval of MinLaw to be able to take the claim to the Employment Claims Tribunals.
I am hoping therefore to raise this, because this is quite ironical. The very fact that he is working as an undischarged bankrupt is to earn wages so that he can repay his debt. So, it is a bit ironical that in late payment or unpaid salary situations, he or she is unable to take further action. Therefore, I hope the Ministry of Law can review this to make the process more seamless and easier for aggrieved workers.
I thank the Member for raising this issue which I think is important to the workers. I appreciate the point raised and perhaps what may be useful is to also understand the specific case in concern. There is that approval process and if it does appear that there is likelihood of success, it is something for the agency to think about.
But I do appreciate the point made that this may be a bit challenging. We will take this back to see how we can facilitate the process even better.
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