Southeast Asian Region Countries Law

Making Legislation

The Parliament of Singapore is unicameral - that is, it has only one House.

See Making Laws on the Parliament website for information on the legislation making process.

Bills Introduced are available on the Singapore Parliament website (open access).

• Bills as introduced at their First Reading, beginning with Bill no. 01/2006. Includes dates when bills were passed. 
• Bills are also published in the government Gazette.

All Bills must go through three readings in Parliament and receive the President's assent to become an Act.

Parliamentary debates - Singapore Parliament Reports (Hansard) are available on the Singapore Parliament website (open access) - from 1955 to current. Can be searched or browsed.

The Parliament website also includes Select Committee Reports, Votes and Proceedings, and Parliamentary Papers.

Once assented to, Acts are published in the Government Gazette and come into operation on the date notified in the Gazette. 

• The eGazette is published daily and is available on open access for 5 days. Access to older gazettes requires a subscription to the Gazette Archive. We do not have a subscription.
• The eGazette also includes Subsidiary Legislation. 

Finding Cases on Legislation

Finding Legislation

Finding Commentary on Legislation

Use LawNet (UniMelb staff & student access).

• From the Legal Research heading, select 'Reference Trace'. Under the heading 'Legislation Reference Search' type in the name or of the Act, or Act/Cap or SL number. You can refine this further by typing in a specific provision.
• The results will list and link to book chapters, commentaries, journal articles, papers and reports under the 'Category' heading - all are in full text. 

Keeping up to Date

LawNet (UniMelb staff & student access) allows you to keep up to date with any changes to an Act.

• From the Home Page, select Legislation from the Legal Research menu. You can then either browse to the Act from the alphabetical list, or search for it. Each Act has rss feed buttons beside it, so you can create feed that will alert you to any amendments to a) the Act itself b) to the subordinate legislation.

Singapore Law Watch - from the Singapore Academy of Law (open access) keeps you up to date with newly enacted legislation.

• The Legislation page lists Acts and subsidiary legislation passed and Bills introduced in the last three months. Links to the full-text official versions in the Government Gazette are provided for legislation passed and bills introduced.
• The Commentaries page includes authoritative comments on recent legislation. Commentaries published in the last three months are listed on SLW. All commentaries can be found in LawNet (UniMelb staff & student access)

Email and rss feed alerts can be set up so you are kept up to date with new bills, legislation passed etc.