Recommendations to Enhance the Criminal Justice System for Migrant Workers
11 November 2020
HOME welcomes the recent Parliamentary debate of fairness and equity in Singapore’s criminal justice system. The Government’s assurances — that individual high-status complainants did not actively improperly influence investigations — reinforce that there are deeper-rooted systemic issues faced by disadvantaged accused, especially migrant workers.
HOME’s key observations of the challenges faced by low-wage migrant workers alleged to have committed offences are set out in our statement of 11 September 2020, “Migrant workers & criminal justice”. In light of these observations, HOME proposes the following recommendations.
1. Greater accountability in conduct of investigation interviews
1.1 Video recording. In 2015, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) suggested that video recording could enhance accountability and transparency in how investigation interviews are conducted. From September 2018, legislative amendments to facilitate the audiovisual recording of interviews took effect. HOME commends these steps. But currently, recording is required for investigations of rape only. HOME looks forward to a clear timeframe for implementation of such recording for various offences across all investigating agencies.
1.2 Video recording is merely a means to an end. The recording should be made available to the accused, readily and practicably, if charges are preferred. The current widely-used “Question & Answer” format for recording interview statements can obscure inappropriate inducements, from investigating officers or interpreters, for accused persons to make admissions in interviews and cautioned statements. Examples of inducements may include promises of leniency, or threats of being 'blacklisted' from future employment. The “Q&A” format may also create artificial distinctions between parts of the answers and their relation to the questioning, affecting how the responses become construed.
1.3 HOME accepts the Government’s position that accompaniment of low-wage migrant workers (analogously to the “Appropriate Adult” scheme) may not be logistically feasible. We accept that problems intended to be addressed thereby would be equally or better dealt with by recording of interviews: if these recordings are made available. Indeed, this provides further impetus for the wide-scale implementation of recording of interviews to be expedited, and the realistic availability of these recordings to the accused after charges are preferred.
1.4 Timing of interviews. HOME urges that as a rule, interviews should be conducted at times of the day when the subject is alert, composed and able to provide reliable information; rather than in the small hours of the morning. We hope that frontline officers will be suitably reminded, incentivised and provided resources to do so.
1.6 Conduct of officers. HOME commends the investigating agencies’ efforts to continually improve the professionalism and discipline of investigating officers, such that evidence may be obtained in a reliable manner, respecting all parties’ fundamental rights. We urge that the authorities accelerate concrete steps toward greater fairness, transparency and accountability in the conduct of investigations. The current practice is that complaints against police officers go to the Internal Affairs Office of the Singapore Police Force. We suggest a default independent mechanism for such complaints to boost public confidence in the accountability process.
2. Access to appropriate professional interpretation
2.1 HOME sometimes receives information of interpreters giving inappropriate unsolicited advice, failing to perform their duties with objectivity or neutrality, and engaging in unprofessional or even unethical conduct: for example, advising migrant workers to make admissions in interviews, cautioned statements or Court. Furthermore, there remain a handful of cases where a low-wage migrant worker, not conversant in English for this purpose, is interviewed without any interpreter present at all.
2.2 Improved access to, and oversight, standardisation and professionalisation of this vital service, is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system. Most crucially, beyond technical and professional competency: interpreters should be sensitised to the ethical dimension and responsibility of their work.
3. Permission for persons assisting investigations to seek employment
3.1 Many migrant workers who are assisting in investigations and are accused of committing offences continue to be barred from seeking employment during investigations and prosecutions. This is separate from whether or not they are able to find willing employers. The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) would not process work pass applications without written confirmation that the investigating agency has no objection to the worker seeking employment. Furthermore, HOME has observed that are distinctions between different groups:
3.1.1 For non-domestic migrant workers, there has been progress over the past few years: today generally, the investigating officer or agency would be amenable to granting permission to seek employment.
3.1.2 For migrant domestic workers, those assisting investigations as complainants or victims of offences are generally allowed to seek employment.
3.1.3 However, migrant domestic workers alleged to have committed offences are generally prohibited from seeking employment.
3.2 HOME commends the progress that has already been made over the past few years, and the improved coordination between MHA and MOM in particular, in order to improve the access that non-domestic migrant workers have to a chance at earning a living while assisting investigations, bearing in mind the principle that an individual is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law, a cornerstone of any criminal justice system. We look forward to further such progress in respect of migrant domestic workers.
4. Providing better legal representation to migrant workers
4.1 Expanding the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme. Many low-wage migrant workers have benefitted from the services of CLAS and its volunteer lawyers. HOME recommends that the scope of CLAS be expanded to cover currently-excluded offences which migrant workers frequently face, such as those under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.
4.2 Public defender scheme. We are heartened by the spirit of the Parliamentary debates which indicated that the Government is considering setting up a Public Defenders’ office. We hope that, if implemented, this scheme will include migrant workers. Everyone should have practical recourse to legal representation, particularly the disenfranchised and vulnerable.
Every person, regardless of socioeconomic or migration status, should be treated as innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Accordingly, every person’s rights which flow from this principle should be concretely protected from the earliest stages of each case, and in every area of our public life. HOME looks forward to continuing progress towards realising these ideals, which should be shared by all.