Tan Cheng Bock v AG
[2017] SGCA 50
with the laws enacted by the Legislature pursuant to Article
19B.
117
As the Judge rightly pointed out (at [98] of the Judgment), the relevant
text of the Explanatory Statement roughly mirrors the text of both Art 19B and
Art 164. It is therefore incapable of adding anything significant to the
understanding which one may already glean from reading the provisions
themselves. The Explanatory Statement too is therefore of limited utility and
need not be considered.
(3)
The Parliamentary debates
118
We turn finally to the Parliamentary debates. One difficulty we must be
mindful of and guard against in ascertaining legislative purpose from the
Parliamentary record is that the debates feature different statements by various
MPs, from which the court must extract the collective will and intent of
Parliament. As we earlier indicated, we must also carefully assess whether the
Parliamentary statements relied on are directed to the point in dispute.
119
In our judgment, our construction of the relevant provisions of the
Constitution is directly confirmed by the only part of the Parliamentary debates
that addressed the specific issue that is before us (namely, when the reserved
election model was to take effect and what was the extent of Parliament’s power
when it came to specifying the first term under Art 164). This was covered in
PM Lee’s speech which stated, in relevant part (see Singapore Parliamentary
Debates, Official Report (8 November 2016) vol 94):
When should the racial provision start counting? The
Constitutional Amendment Bill states that the Government
should legislate on this point. The Government intends to
legislate when we amend the Presidential Elections Act in
January next year.
58