Overview of functions

The Legislation Division provides law drafting and legislative consultancy services to all Ministries, Organs of State and statutory bodies, and law publication and database management services. AGC supports the Rule of Law by providing free online public access to Singapore legislation through the  Singapore Statutes Online (SSO) website.

Our mission is to contribute to constitutional government, sustainable development and an accessible Statute Book for all through the provision of high quality, impartial and efficient services in legislative drafting and the revision of legislation.

Our vision is to create an effective Statute Book for Singapore. This means producing legislation that is:

• Constitutional, and consistent with the Rule of Law

• Compatible with the general body of law

• Clear and concise (having minimal judicial dispute)

• Able to give effect to policies with no unintended consequences

• Precise so as to minimise avoidance of the law

• Able to ensure the test of time without the frequent need for amendments

• Easily understandable (in plain English)

• Accessible and readily available to all; and

• Cost-effective for compliance.

The work of the Legislation Division and the Legislative Services Unit comprises the following:

• advising the Government and public sector agencies with respect to (a) the development of proposals for legislation, and (b) the process to enact and implement legislation;

• drafting Government Bills and accompanying explanatory statements for introduction to Parliament;

• drafting subsidiary legislation to implement the Acts administered by the Government and other public sector agencies;

• participating in inter-ministry and public-private sector committees driving emerging policies and law reform;

• producing proofs of legislation for introduction to Parliament and for publication in the Gazette;

• providing access to accurate and updated legislation (both Acts and subsidiary legislation) on the Singapore Statutes Online (SSO) website;

• maintaining LegiS@Gov, a database of Singapore legislation, on the Government Intranet;

• producing revised editions of legislation under the direction of the Law Revision Commission.

Who we are and what we do

Law Drafters

The Legislation Division comprises lawyers who:

• draft Bills and subsidiary legislation;

• advise the Government and other public sector agencies on legislative approaches and solutions, and on the initial implementation of legislation enacted; and

• carry out law revision work from time to time.

The law drafters are divided into 6 clusters, namely:

• Infrastructure and Environment Cluster

• Social Cluster

• Economic Cluster

• Centre of Government Cluster

• Law & Technology Cluster

• Security Cluster

Legislative Services Unit

The Legislation Division works closely with the Legislative Services Unit, a unit within the Legal Operations Group, which comprises 3 functional groups (described below).

First, the Law Editing and Revision Group comprises editors and editorial assistants and is responsible for:

• reviewing, editing and proofreading draft legislation prepared by law drafters and editors to ensure that they are accurate, inherently consistent and error-free;

• ensuring the timely production of proofs of legislation for introduction to Parliament and for publication in the Gazette; and

• preparing and publishing revised editions of legislation under the direction of the Law Revision Commission.

Second, the Law Publishing, Database Management and Legislative Systems Group is responsible for maintaining and publishing legislation that is introduced in Parliament and all enacted legislation on the Legislation Editing and Authentic Publishing System which supplies the following online legislation databases:

• Versioned Legislation Database (VLDB) (internal)

• LegiS@Gov (for the Government Intranet)

• Singapore Statutes Online (SSO) (for the general public).

The Group is responsible for producing Presentation Copies for Bills, typesetting subsidiary legislation for publication in the Gazette and publishing all legislation on the online legislation databases. The Group also produces informal consolidations of all legislation.

If you require access to Singapore legislation, please visit the Singapore Statutes Online (SSO) website.

Third, the Legal Policy, Planning and Standards Unit is responsible for maintaining the repository of decisions and standards on legislative and legal policies for the drafting of legislation. It also works with the AGC-Legal Service Academy to source and plan for training for the Legislation Division and the Legislative Services Unit, and performs the secretariat function for the annual workplan and Bill planning programme.