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Our Projects & Initiatives
Use of Plain English
The Attorney-General's Chambers has been promoting the use of plain English in legislation drafting for some time. The use of legal jargon is minimised and replaced with modern language. Long and complex sentences are divided into shorter ones or made intelligible by paragraphing. Assistance is also given to readers of legislation through the use of objects clauses and very detailed explanatory statements setting out the purpose and operation of a Bill.
Drafting Teams
The Legislation Division is organised into Drafting Teams to allow for more specialisation amongst the legislative draftsmen and more effective supervision of draftsmen in their work. The team leader of each team is a Legal Officer of sufficient seniority who acts as a mentor to his or her team members. Team work ensures continuity in the work of the team and provides training for the less experienced members of the team.
There are currently 3 teams of draftsmen specialising in different areas of legislation. One team handles legislation related to the financial sector, corporate and commercial legislation and matters relating to e-commerce and indirect taxes. Another team handles constitutional and election matters, and matters relating to info-communications, defence, land and criminal legislation. The final team handles matters relating to food, health, environment, primary production and education.
Versioned Legislation Database System
The Versioned Legislation Database System (“VLDB”) captures
the texts of all the statutes and subsidiary legislation of Singapore.
It is “versioned” in that all versions of legislation since
01 Jan 1997 are captured are available for time-based retrieval through
an easy-to-use interface. The Division was instrumental in the setting
up and maintaining of the VLDB which was launched by the Chief Justice
on 28 Feb 98 as part of the LawNet Legal Workbench. This database is
available to all Government Ministry users free of charge. Members
of the Legal Profession may obtain paid subscriptions through the LawNet
Project. Subscription details are available at http://www.lawnet.com.sg.
In addition, ad hoc usage by members of the public (through time-based
charging) is also available through LawNet. Free access to all Acts
of Parliament is available through the Statutes.Online website, which
can be found at http://statutes.agc.gov.sg.
The Statutes.Online website has only the latest version of Acts of
Parliament, updated monthly.
Subject Index To Legislation
The Subject Index to Acts and Subsidiary Legislation is a useful legal research tool and a tool to increase general awareness of statutory law in Singapore. The Division produced a 273-page Subject Index to Acts in 1998. The Division also published a Subject Index to Subsidiary Legislation in Jul 1999. Yearly Updates to the Subject Index to Acts and the Subject Index to Subsidiary Legislation are prepared under the supervision of the Division.
The eGazette
The eGazette, launched on 15 Sep 1998, is the online publication of the Government Gazette. Notifications on the eGazette are official by Government authority and effective on the date they are electronically published. The Division checks the printed proofs of subsidiary legislation to be gazetted immediately prior to their publication at 5 pm every weekday. Gazette Notifications can be accessed free of charge (for five days after publication) at http://www.egazette.com.sg.
In-house Legislative Drafting Course
Since 1997, the Division has begun conducting an annual In-House Legislative Drafting Course. The objectives of the course are to equip budding draftsmen with basic drafting skills and to improve the standard of drafting instructions and draft legislation prepared by our client ministries and statutory boards. Participants in the Course have included officers from both the Legal Service and our client ministries and statutory boards, as well as law officers from Brunei and Sri Lanka.
Legislation Resource Website
A legislation resource website was created for the Division which is a collection of links to legal resources from around the world. The website serves as a one-stop research site for draftsmen when they need to find drafting precedents from other jurisdictions.
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