Oral Answer by Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law, Mr K Shanmugam, to Parliamentary Questions on Review of Penal Code

09 JAN 2018

9 Jan 2018 Posted in Parliamentary speeches and responses

Mr Kok Heng Leun (Nominated Member of Parliament)

Questions:

To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) what is the outcome of the Ministry’s review on the criminalisation of attempted suicide; and (b) whether any legislative change will be introduced and, if so, when.

To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) what is the outcome of the Government’s review on the issue of marital immunity for rape; and (b) whether any legislative change will be introduced and, if so, when.

Answer

  1. We set up this Committee in July 2016 to review the Penal Code. Some of the areas that are being looked at by the Committee include attempted suicide, marital immunity for rape, punishments for sex offenders, and the need to create new criminal offences to deal with the changing crime environment. In that context, the feedback on these issues, both from Members of this House and outside have been noted. They are being considered in the review.

  2. In addition to these, the Committee is also undertaking a fairly fundamental review on the principles which underlie our penal laws, including elements of criminal liability, the required mental element, intention or knowledge, the scope of mental health defences, as well as some of the language used in the Penal Code.

  3. The Committee aims to complete its work later this year. We will then invite feedback from the public on the recommendations.

Factsheet on Penal Code Review Committee(0.19MB)

Last updated on 10 Jan 2018