Coroners (Amendment) Bill
Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Sir, I support this Bill, which will allow for greater flexibility in the Coroner’s discharge of duties. This flexibility will save the valuable resources of the Coroner, Police, Health Sciences Authority and all other related parties.
That said, I have three quick points of clarification.
My first point is on the Coroner’s investigation process. Body viewing is one of the steps the Coroner must take in investigating and determining the cause and circumstances surrounding a reported death. Having a proper procedure in place is important because it provides reassurance to the deceased’s family and similarly protects the Coroner from any allegations of wrongdoing or negligence.
With the amendment to make such body viewing discretionary, can the Minister share what remaining mandatory requirements the Coroner has to fulfil in its preliminary investigation?
My second point is on the safeguards to ensure correct identification of bodies. I note that existing safeguards to ensure the correct identification will remain. As Minister has shared, these safeguards include the tagging of the body with the deceased’s particulars at the scene and at the mortuary, the Police signing off on a Body Identification Form and sending it to the Coroner.
Can Minister share if additional steps will be taken to strengthen the existing safeguards to ensure correct identification notwithstanding the removal of the mandatory body viewing requirement?
My third point is on the revocation of certificates to release the bodies of deceased persons to foreign states. The new section 17A provides the Minister’s power to issue a Minister’s certificate to release the bodies of a deceased person to foreign states in certain cases. Under the new section 17A(4), the Minister also has the power to revoke any Minister’s certificate previously issued.
Can Minister clarify under what circumstances would the Minister’s certificate be revoked? Is there a time limit in exercising the revocation?
If the certificate is revoked after the body has been buried, cremated, or transported out of the country, can Minister share what methods and procedures are in place to ensure that the quality of the resumed investigation under the new section 17A(4)(a) will not be compromised?
Sir, notwithstanding these clarifications, I stand in support of the Bill.
Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai (The Second Minister for Law): Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Members for their quick, short and sharp speeches. I will try to make my answers equally short.
Mr Ng asked what were the mandatory requirements for the preliminary investigation. There are no mandatory steps in this. But it really depends on the particular circumstances of the death and the context in which it occurs and whether or not there are particular areas of concern that the Coroner has, which will then drive the steps to be taken in the preliminary investigation.
Mr Ng, Ms Lim and Mr Tan asked about the current process, whether there are safeguards, whether we are doing this because there is a manpower issue, and it is driven entirely by this.
First of all, I will remind Members what I said at the outset, that we have been doing this for a couple of years now, since the Coroners Act came into force in 2010, using a variety of different steps, technology, video usage, RFID, QR coding. And I think I described the process in some detail earlier. We looked at that, we looked at the records, we looked at the reliability of that system, and as I said just now, we found that as far as we could tell, there were no misidentifications using this system. This then gave us enough confidence to propose this suggestion.
It is not to say that because of this that there will be a flood of non-inspections or non-viewing of the bodies as a result of this. I think it just gives the Coroner a discretion, on a case-by-case basis, assessing the probative value of each of the different sources of identification, making an overall assessment and deciding whether or not it is sufficiently safe not to actually view the body.
I do not think I will go into the specific steps again. I think Members can take reference from what I had said earlier.
Ms Lim had asked about the exemption, section 17A. Ms Lim, to paraphrase her, suggested that there might be circumstances where the request could be motivated by less noble reasons, nefarious reasons, I think, was the phrase that was used. I would like to assure Ms Lim that if such a situation arises, then it would not, obviously, be in the public interest for us to accede to that request. If there are suspicious circumstances surrounding a head of state's or a foreign government minister's death in Singapore, then obviously, it is not in our country's interest to give up on the investigation and to let the foreign state take over the investigations and in fact, to completely remove the body from Singapore altogether. So, I think that she should be reasonably assuaged.
On the suggestion that there might be a quick handover, there are steps in section 17A(2) which sets out the different checks that the Minister will have regard to prior to issuing the certificate and this includes looking at information from a forensic pathologist, even directing the forensic pathologist to investigate the apparent cause, to have some degree of satisfaction, and also the Minister may direct the Police to provide any further assistance that a pathologist might require.
So, all of these steps give us the assurance that the death has not occurred in nefarious or unusual circumstances, and there is enough, sufficient public interest for us to accede to the request.
Mr Tan asked about the rationale of section 17A. The point is this. There are circumstances where a foreign state may have a legitimate interest in the death and request that Singapore does not conduct our post-mortem examination. For example, the foreign state may wish to maintain the integrity of the body – I think Ms Lim mentioned "preserve the dignity" – so that it may conduct its own post-mortem examination on its resident or citizen.
On other occasions, the death may have taken place in Singapore, but the cause of death is really only tangentially connected to Singapore and is instead more closely connected with events and circumstances overseas.
Mr Tan asked whether it is motivated by any particular occasion. It is really a question of comity, as far as we can to try and accommodate in appropriate situations. The point here is, at this point in time the Act does not allow any leeway whatsoever. What these amendments do is not to say that in all such requests they will be granted but it creates the possibility of acceding to these requests when they come in.
Mr Pillai asked about the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act. I understand where Mr Pillai is coming from, when he says that why is there no similar requirement for the Public Prosecutor (PP)'s consent in this case.
Well, first of all, the PP's views whether or not they are going to be conducting further investigations, its sense of whether there is any impropriety which merits further review or investigation, will all be taken into account.
It is not the same framework as the CLTPA here because in that situation we are dealing with consent to detain a person. Here, it is in relation to a request by a foreign party to not conduct a post-mortem here and to release the body to a foreign state. And of course, the whole gamut of matters that surround the public interest criteria including whether or not the PP's view is that there should be a further investigation, will be taken into account.
I would add that the Minister is very unlikely to reach a conclusion that it is in our public interest, where circumstances surrounding the death is either unknown, unclear or it is not apparently the reason, as set out, through a disease or manifest cause and where there might be a suspicion of foul play, then in those situations, in assessing public interest, the Minister will obviously have to consider the PP's position as far as these considerations are concerned.
Mr Ng asked for a clarification of the circumstances in which the Minister's certificate might be revoked. When deciding whether to issue the certificate in the first place, in other words, before we have to get into a situation where we have to decide what happens when we revoke it, the question as to what is public interest, whether it is appropriate in this case, whether we should be granting the certificate, will be judiciously considered. This minimises the possibility of having to subsequently reconsider similar circumstances, as far as possible.
Obviously, there could be a change in circumstances. There could be a scenario where the foreign state, for example, withdraws the request for the certificate or that there is now some other material that is known now, that was not available at that point in time. Obviously, these are matters which might arise.
There is no time limit prescribed for the revocation. But, obviously, the Minister will have to consider the time elapsed that has gone by, the prejudice, if any, that may have been incurred as a result of the body's movement and whether it is practical in the first place, if the body had already gone back, had undertaken a foreign post-mortem examination and it is not feasible to have that review done in Singapore thereafter.
So, all of these factors will be taken into account, but for flexibility purposes, there is not a prescribed timeframe in the framework of this Bill for the revocation.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I think I have addressed all of the questions raised by Members. I beg to move.
Source: Hansard
