Speech by Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and Second Minister for Law Edwin Tong SC, at the Legal Aid Bureau’s 66th Anniversary and Award Ceremony

Ministers of State Rahayu Mahzam and Murali Pillai

Judges Debbie Ong, Vincent Hoong and Valerie Thean

Deputy Attorney-Generals Lionel Yee, Tai Wei Shyong and Ang Cheng Hock

Director of Legal Aid, Lim Hui Min, and former Directors of Legal Aid

Distinguished guests

Colleagues

Members of the Bar

Ladies and gentlemen

INTRODUCTION

1.             Good evening.

2.             I am very glad to able to join you today as we celebrate the 66th anniversary of the Legal Aid Bureau. This is indeed such a milestone. From the videos we saw earlier, I think we are really in for a treat tonight!

HISTORY OF THE BUREAU

3.             The Legal Aid Bureau (“the Bureau”) was founded in 1958 to provide legal aid and advice to persons of limited means, as you saw in the videos earlier. I am not sure many of you know that Singapore was the very first state in Southeast Asia to have a legal aid scheme. From the day it started operations until today, the Bureau has received almost 420,000 applications for legal aid and advice for civil matters.

4.             In the past 66 years, the Bureau has had cases in the Singapore courts, and has also done a ship arrest! Let me tell you about the ship arrest – that was for the infamous Spyros disaster many years ago, when a Greek tanker exploded in Jurong Shipyard in 1973, killing or injuring more than 150 people. Legal aid was provided for all the victims, or their families, if the victims had passed away, to seek compensation for their injuries or deaths. The ship was, of course, prevented from leaving port until all the claims were satisfied. That is how effective the Bureau was, in arresting the ship.

5.             Let me also share a more recent, and perhaps, a more common story, but nonetheless one that reflects the Bureau’s real impact that they make on people’s lives. This story, amongst others that we saw in the video earlier, tells you that whilst its name is the Legal Aid Bureau, it goes well beyond providing just legal aid.

6.             A 21-year-old girl came to the Bureau, saying that she had been sexually abused by her father since she was 11 years old. She had suffered in silence for almost a decade, as she feared her father tremendously. But when she finally plucked up the courage to confide this to the rest of her family, they called her a liar and did not believe her. Things got so unpleasant that she was forced to move out of the family home and into a crisis shelter. The Bureau helped the applicant to apply for a Personal Protection Order (PPO) and Domestic Exclusion Order against her father. Eventually, her father consented to the PPO and agreed to move out of the family home. The applicant could finally return home after this. If you thought that the father moved out consensually and easily, I think we got to think again. It was down to the determination of the officer at the Bureau pushing the case, making arguments and persuading the court and the parties, that there were serious, credible merits. Because of the court proceedings, the applicant’s family members finally saw her side of the story, believed her and reconciled with her, and welcomed her back to the family, having realised that the initial disbelief really caused a rift in the family.

7.             This shows one of the many examples of our officers going beyond just providing legal aid. They actually provide care for the applicant, and look at all facets of how they can provide the assistance. Sometimes it starts with the legal case, sometimes it ends with the legal case, but everything in between, is something that our officers look after as well, especially for those in our society who are exceptionally vulnerable.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF STAFF, ASSIGNED SOLICITORS, VOLUNTEERS AND PARTNERS

8.             So this evening, with these stories and what you saw in the videos earlier, I would like to spend a few moments to pay a real big tribute to all those who have helped the Bureau’s applicants for the past 66 years.

9.             I want to start with the Bureau’s staff, past and present. The Bureau has grown from a small team of only 15 staff in 1958, to over 50 today. I might put it in these terms, about it growing very big and so on, but 15 in 1958 and more than 50 today in 2024 is not that big a jump and it shows you the load that each of the officers is carrying today at the Bureau. And I want to say a big thank you to all of you for your hard work, for seeing something in each of the applicants that you find resonance with, that you see a cause that you want to pick up on behalf of each applicant, and you see each applicant as someone whom you care for – not just as an applicant for legal services, but someone who in society cannot fend for himself or herself and needs your help to stand.

10.        I want to make special mention of the Bureau’s longest serving staff who is still in service now – that is Mr Alagesan Vengadasalam, a legal executive, who has been with the Bureau for 45 years. Mr Alagesan has been with the Bureau for more than two-thirds of its existence since 66 years ago. Another long-serving staff is Senior Deputy Director Louis D’Souza. He has been with the Bureau for the past 24 years, but I think everyone who has been in practice, been in the Bar, been in Legal Service, would have heard of Mr D’Souza. I would like to thank both of you, Mr Alagesan and Mr D’Souza for your long service, but beyond the length of service, for the passion, for the dedication to the cause, for understanding deeply and caring widely.

11.        Next, a big thank you to all our volunteer lawyers, community partners and Assigned Solicitors. I am glad that many of you are here amongst us this evening, sharing the celebrations tonight and also being very much a part of us, not just tonight, but all the way through the Bureau’s work.

12.        The Bureau’s Volunteer Assistant Directors of Legal Aid help the Bureau by providing legal advice to applicants. One of the volunteers is Professor Ang Si Yi from the NUS Law School, who also helms the NUS-LAB clinical legal education programme. Under this programme, law students can work on the Bureau’s cases under their professors’ supervision, allowing them to pick up early stage legal skills but perhaps more importantly, fostering in them from a very early age in their career, even in school, the spirit of pro bono, what it means and what it takes to help others who are not able to help themselves. As you might imagine, some of the students, having gone through this, went on to become Legal Officers and Assigned Solicitors of the Bureau.

13.        Next, I want to extend my appreciation to the Bureau’s community partners – Family Service Centres (FSCs), voluntary welfare organisations, and even other Government departments such as the Ministry of Social and Family Development. By collaborating with these partners, the Bureau is able to do more exponentially, and build on these networks. They can help applicants with their non-legal needs. Many of these partners serve in different capacities, not necessarily legal, and we are able to leverage them to help our applicants in different ways, help them in ways such as housing, family violence, sometimes drug addiction, by referring them to the appropriate help.

14.        We thank you very much for always being welcoming, always taking on these cases, and for also looking at these cases not just from a lens of ‘how do I help them within my domain’, but apply the whole-of-society and therefore the whole-of-government approach to the way in which we solve their problems.

15.        One such successful collaboration is the “Building Bridges” initiative. Under this programme, the Bureau partners with Montfort Care, a social service agency, to provide an avenue for applicants seeking to vary their court orders for child-related matters to undergo counselling and mediation, so that they can, through this process, talk it out and hopefully settle matters amicably instead of going to court. This encourages parties to try and find long-term, consensual, amicable solutions, through collaboration instead of conflict.

16.        Last but not least, I would like to thank the Bureau’s Assigned Solicitors for your dedication in helping its applicants. The Bureau currently has 164 active Assigned Solicitors who have taken on at least one legal aid case in the past year. Collectively, the Assigned Solicitors handle more than 60% of the Bureau’s cases, which is a significant chunk of the workload that we carry.

17.        I wish to mention in particular, one Assigned Solicitor who has done the most number of cases of all time for the Bureau. This is Mr Mastan Marican. Mr Marican has handled a record 1,118 cases. I would also like to highlight that we have 23 Assigned Solicitors who have served for more than 30 years and are still, today, active in helping the Bureau. Time does not permit me to name all of you – but I want to express, on behalf of the Bureau, my admiration and my deepest gratitude for your help to the Bureau for these decades.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ASSIGNED SOLICITOR SCHEME

18.        One interesting initiative I would like to mention, involving Assigned Solicitors, is the “Choose Your Own Assigned Solicitor” programme which was piloted in August 2023. Under this scheme, applicants who wish to start civil divorce proceedings can select a lawyer from a panel of 19 Assigned Solicitors. They will be given a list of the participating Assigned Solicitors, together with information on the languages that these Assigned Solicitors speak, their location, areas of expertise as well as a brief CV that sets out the highlights of their career accomplishments and so on. They can then directly contact the Assigned Solicitor of their choice, without having to come to the Bureau’s office first. The Assigned Solicitor will make a recommendation on whether the applicant should be granted aid, after seeing him or her.

19.        This one-year pilot, I am told, was a success, receiving 105 applications. This was about 12% of the total number of Divorce Plaintiff applications for the same period, so more than 1 in 10 applicants got to have the lawyer of their choice for their divorce case. In cases like these, you do need a connection with the lawyer, and there needs to be some degree of trust which is best decided in some cases, as far as possible, between the party and the solicitor directly. So I am very glad to announce that the Bureau will make this a permanent programme moving forward, and will also explore extending this to more subject matters in the future.

PURSUING EXCELLENCE

20.        Throughout its 66 years, the Bureau has undergone massive changes in the way it does its work, for example moving away from typewriters and paper files. The Bureau was, in fact, the very first “law firm” in Singapore to go completely paperless by adopting an electronic case management system. So actually, for all the effort that we in MinLaw spend on promoting legaltech, we need to work with the Bureau a bit more, on how to speak to lawyers about adopting technology in their work.

21.        The Bureau has also kept up with upskilling and retraining over the years. For example, the Bureau’s officers undergo regular training on legal as well as non-legal skills. Non-legal skills can include public speaking, leadership training and even how to give and receive feedback graciously.

22.        Another way that the Bureau has upskilled its officers is through the Specialist Legal Executive Scheme. Under this scheme, selected legal executives may give legal advice and attend court for certain categories of civil and Syariah divorce and probate matters. This allows legal executives to expand their horizons and build on the work that they have been doing behind the scenes, move a little bit in front of the scenes, to higher-level work. This also frees up legal officers to do more complex casework, and it overall enables our officers to develop themselves better and more professionally.

23.        The Bureau has also constantly tried to improve its service to the public by using technology. Let me give two illustrations of this –

(a) First, advice by videoconference. Applicants today do not have to travel all the way to the Bureau’s office in Maxwell Road to obtain legal advice. They can now also go to a Community Centre (CC), FSC or Social Service Office (SSO) in their own neighbourhood, where they live, to see an LAB lawyer via videoconferencing. To date, a total of 7 CCs, 29 FSCs and 24 SSOs across Singapore are on board this service – which covers practically the whole of Singapore.

(b) Second, the Bureau has developed three in-house digital tools: iLAB, Divorce AIDE, and eBantu, which can all be found on the Bureau’s website.

i. iLAB is a chatbot that provides information on various legal topics, tailored to the user’s interests and needs.

ii. Divorce AIDE is a matrimonial assets division calculator.

iii. eBantu (Bantu in Malay is “help”, so eBantu is “e-help”) guides users on how to fill Syariah Court divorce documents and provides information on Syariah Court divorce issues tailored to the user’s circumstances.

24.        LAB officers played a major role in designing and developing these tools, based on their own user experience and their experience in dealing with clients and interfacing with the court systems. I would like to end by commending the Bureau for constantly challenging themselves to break new ground, find ways to better serve our applicants in this technology and digital age.

CONCLUSION

25.        Finally as I close, I would like to congratulate all of you again at the Bureau for reaching this milestone. It is not easy – 66 years, which means that you started serving applicants, clients, from well before Singapore was independent. To all of you who have made the Bureau what it is today, past and present, thank you very much for that unstinting, generous support and commitment. To the Bureau’s officers, I thank you very much for upholding the Bureau’s mission to advance access to justice to the less privileged, and always remember your motto to help with a heart.

26.        I look at the legal system as if you can think of it as a jar, where you put in the big pieces of legal policy. The jar will never always be full, but if you put in smaller pebbles and a bit of sand, it makes the jar full, compact and complete. I think this is the kind of work that each of you as Legal Service Officers, as LAB officers, as Assigned Solicitors, as partners and stakeholders of the Bureau, do. All of you play a part in filling up that little jar with each of your effort, time, commitment, care, devotion, and collectively, this makes Singapore a much better place, and the work we do collectively keeps Singapore inclusive, keeps Singapore caring. Do not ever underestimate the importance of access to justice, especially for those who are unable to help themselves, because much as we might want to call ourselves a first-class legal system, it is not going to be complete unless the person right at the bottom of the spectrum will be able to freely access justice for himself or herself – and that is the measure of the work that all of you do to help us along on that path.

27.        So thank you very much. Enjoy the 66 th anniversary. Thank you.

Last updated on 24 October 2024