Phase 3 Commencement of the Criminal Procedure (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2024
17 January 2025 Posted in Press releases
1. The Criminal Procedure (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 20241 (“CPMAA 2024”) was passed in Parliament on 5 February 2024 and is being operationalised in phases. The first and second phases of the amendments came into effect in May and August 2024 respectively.2 The third phase, comprising the amendments relating to criminal disclosure and the unsoundness of mind (“UOM”) regime, will come into effect on 14 February 2025.
Amendments relating to criminal disclosure
2. In 2010, the Ministry of Law (“MinLaw”) introduced the Criminal Case Disclosure (“CCD”) regime, a statutory pre-trial disclosure framework under which the Prosecution and the Defence sequentially disclose and exchange information about their cases before trial. Since 2011, a common law disclosure regime has developed in parallel through case law.
3. The CPMAA 2024 amendments were arrived at after extensive consultations with criminal justice stakeholders, including the Defence Bar, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (“AGC”) and the Courts. The amendments relate to two key aspects:
a) First, the amendments place the common law disclosure obligations on a statutory footing by codifying, clarifying or modifying aspects of these obligations. This achieves greater clarity and certainty, as well as coherence through ensuring that these disclosure obligations align with the sequential nature of the CCD regime.
b) Second, the amendments fine-tune aspects of the CCD regime. Among other things, the amendments expand the CCD regime by requiring compulsory participation in both State Court and High Court CCD cases. This facilitates greater pre-trial disclosure and allows for a clearer identification of the disputed issues, which in turn makes the trial more focused and efficient.
4. For more details on the amendments, please refer to https://go.gov.sg/cpcbill2024 and https://go.gov.sg/cpc-sps-rahayu-speech.
5. To cater for ongoing criminal cases and specific situations, the Criminal Procedure (Saving and Transitional Provisions — Disclosure) Regulations 2025 (https://go.gov.sg/criminal-procedure-reg-2025) have also been enacted and will also come into effect on 14 February 2025.
Amendments to the UOM regime
6. The Criminal Procedure Code also provides for special procedures to deal with two categories of accused persons:
a) Those who are “unfit to plead” i.e. incapable of making their defence; and
b) Those who are acquitted on the basis that they were of unsound mind at the time that they committed the offences.
7. The CPMAA 2024 amendments will further clarify and improve the regime, by:
a) Clarifying that only the General Division of the High Court (“HC”) can determine the maximum duration for which a person who is unfit to plead may be confined for a case that must or ought to be tried in the HC, and set out the applicable process for such cases;
b) Providing the Courts with the power to require or allow for videoconferencing in any UOM proceedings;
c) Allowing the Courts to dispense with the attendance of subjects in UOM proceedings in the interests of justice; and
d) Clarifying the mechanisms for reporting of the Institute of Mental Health Visitors’ reviews, and for the issuance of confinement orders and conditional release orders by the Minister.
MINISTRY OF LAW
17 JANUARY 2025
1. The Act advances our criminal justice system and contains various amendments aimed at (i) protecting the public by strengthening our levers to tackle crime, including serious sexual crime, and (ii) enhancing transparency, fairness and coherence in our criminal court processes.↩
2. For more information on the amendments that came into force under Phase 1 and Phase 2, please see https://go.gov.sg/cpcphase1 and https://go.gov.sg/cpcphase2.↩