PART 3 [Act 5 of 2025 wef 09/03/2025] 4.—(1) In the preparation of the revised edition of Acts, the Commissioners have power, without changing the meaning of any Act —| (a) | to omit —| (i) | all Acts or parts of Acts which have been repealed, expressly, specifically or by necessary implication, or which have expired or have become spent or have had effect, and all Supply Acts and Acts or parts of Acts so far as they effect changes of titles; | | (ii) | all repealing enactments contained in Acts and all tables or lists of repealed enactments, whether contained in schedules or otherwise; | | (iii) | all preambles to Acts; | | (iv) | all introductory words of enactment in any Act or section of an Act; | | (v) | all enactments prescribing the date when an Act or part of an Act is to come into force; | | (vi) | all amending Acts or parts of Acts where the amendments effected by those Acts or parts of Acts have been embodied by the Commissioners in the Acts to which they relate; | | (vii) | all enacting clauses; and | | (viii) | any parts of an Act which can more conveniently be included as rules, regulations, orders, notifications, by‑laws or other instruments made under any Act or other lawful authority and having legislative effect:Provided that section 16 of the Interpretation Act 1965 applies to such omissions in the same manner as if the enactments omitted had been repealed; |
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| | (b) | to arrange the grouping and sequence of Acts; | | (c) | to add a long title or a short title to any Act and to alter the long title or the short title of any Act; | | (d) | to supply, alter or omit tables of contents, footnotes, marginal notes, headings to sections and other provisions, and headings to Parts, Chapters and other subdivisions of any Act; | | (e) | to adopt a convenient standard form in all Acts for —| (i) | the interpretation section; | | (ii) | any penal section; and | | (iii) | any section giving power to make subsidiary legislation, whether that section already appears in any Act or is inserted by the Commissioners as a result of the exercise by them of the power conferred by paragraph (a)(viii) or any other power conferred upon them by this Act; |
| | (f) | to consolidate into one Act any 2 or more Acts in pari materia, making any alterations that are thereby rendered necessary in the consolidated Act, and affixing a date thereto that may seem most convenient, and to incorporate all or any of the provisions of any Act in one or more other Acts where the provisions so incorporated relate to the same subject matter as the Act in which they are incorporated; | | (g) | to divide any Act into 2 or more Acts and to make any amendments, including the supplying of titles or the alteration of existing titles, that are thereby rendered necessary; | | (h) | to incorporate in any Act any amendment made to any schedule, form or other part by any authority under powers conferred by that Act; | | (i) | to change the order of sections or other provisions of an Act, and to number or renumber the sections or other provisions of an Act; | | (j) | to make the following editorial changes to bring an Act in line, or more closely in line, with current legislative drafting practice:| (i) | changes to spelling, punctuation, grammar or syntax, or the use of conjunctives and disjunctives; | | (ii) | changes to the way of referring to or expressing a number, year, date, time, amount of money or of other things, penalty, quantity, measurement or other matter, idea or concept; | | (iii) | changes to language that indicates or could be taken to indicate gender; |
| | (k) | to alter the form of arrangement of any section of an Act by transposing words, by combining it in whole or in part with another section or other sections or by dividing it into 2 or more subsections; | | (l) | to divide any Act, whether consolidated or not, into parts or other divisions; | | (m) | to correct grammatical, typographical and similar mistakes in any Act and to make verbal additions, omissions or alterations; | | (n) | to make any formal alterations as to names, localities, departments, offices, titles and otherwise that may be necessary to bring any Act to be included in the revised edition of Acts into conformity with the circumstances of Singapore; | | (o) | to correct or update cross‑references; | | (p) | to incorporate in or omit from any Act (as the case may be) all matters required to be added to, omitted from or substituted for any provisions of the Act as a result of any amendments made to that Act by any written law; | | (q) | to delete any words, expressions, nomenclature or other provisions in any Act which have expired or become obsolete, including references to repealed Acts, and to substitute therefor, where necessary, appropriate words, expressions, nomenclature or provisions or references to the appropriate Acts; | | (r) | to restyle Ordinances as Acts; and | | (s) | to do all other things relating to form and method reasonably necessitated by or consequential upon the exercise by the Commissioners of any of the powers conferred upon them by this section or which may be necessary for the perfecting of the revised edition of Acts. [7/97; 2/2012; 4/2021] |
| (2) A notification specifying the Acts that are omitted from the revised edition of Acts under subsection (1) must be published in the Gazette. |
| (3) For the purpose of preparing the revised edition of Acts, the Commissioners may appoint a revision date and all Acts included in the revised edition must be revised up to that date. |
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| Omission of certain Acts from revised edition of Acts |
5.—(1) The Commissioners must omit from the revised edition of Acts any Acts that the President may specify by notification in the Gazette.| (2) Despite anything to the contrary in this Act, such Acts and any Parts, sections or other divisions of such Acts remain in force until they have been expressly repealed or have expired or become spent or had effect. |
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| Mode of dealing with amendments, etc., not authorised under section 4 |
6.—(1) If the Commissioners consider that it is desirable that, in the preparation of the revised edition of Acts, there should be omissions, amendments or additions, other than those authorised by section 4, the same may be collected and submitted to Parliament in the form of one or more Acts.(2) If the Act or Acts mentioned in subsection (1) are enacted prior to the date specified in the order mentioned in section 7, then —| (a) | the Commissioners must, in the preparation of the revised edition of Acts, give the like effect to such omissions, amendments or additions as if they had been authorised by section 4; and | | (b) | if, as a result of any such omissions, amendments or additions, any Act or part thereof has been repealed or has expired or become spent or had effect, the Act or part thereof must be omitted from the revised edition of Acts. |
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| Bringing of revised edition of Acts into force |
7.—(1) The Commissioners must, upon completion, transmit to the President a copy of the revised edition of Acts.| (2) The President may then, by order in the Gazette, provide that the revised edition of Acts comes into force on such date as the President thinks fit. |
| (3) The revised edition of Acts must, as soon as possible after the publication of the order, be published and presented to Parliament. |
| (4) From the date specified in the order mentioned in subsection (2), the revised edition of Acts is, without affecting sections 5 and 6, in all courts and for all purposes the sole and only proper Statute Book of Singapore in respect of Acts contained therein. |
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| Contents and arrangement of revised edition of Acts |
8.—(1) Subject to sections 4, 5 and 6, the revised edition of Acts must include —| (a) | the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore; | | (b) | all Acts wholly or substantially in force on 31 December 2020, and any other Acts coming wholly or substantially into force after that date that the Commissioners think fit to include; | | (c) | a table of contents and a chronological table of Acts; and | | (d) | a list of Acts omitted under section 5. [2/2012; 4/2021] |
| (2) The revised edition of Acts must be printed in such number of volumes and divided as the Commissioners think fit. [4/2021] |
| (3) The Acts contained in the revised edition of Acts may be arranged alphabetically or in any other way the Commissioners think fit, regardless of their date of enactment. [4/2021] |
| (4) There must be annexed to each Act contained in the revised edition of Acts the Chapter number (if any) and the year and number by which the Act had previously been denoted in the last official publication thereof, as well as the year and number of any other law the provisions of which have been incorporated into it by virtue of the powers conferred upon the Commissioners under section 4. [4/2021] |
| (5) The commencement of each Act must be set out immediately below the long title of the Act. |
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| Form of publication to be by bound booklet |
9.—(1) The Commissioners must cause the revised edition of every Act to be published in the form of one or more separate booklets, each of which must contain —| (a) | on the front page thereof the words —| (i) | “The Statutes of the Republic of Singapore”; and | | (ii) | “2020 Revised Edition”; and |
| | (b) | at the top of every subsequent page of each such booklet the words “2020 Ed.”. [4/2021] |
| (2) The Commissioners must cause the various booklets which have been compiled for the purposes of subsection (1) to be contained together in any number of volumes that they consider convenient. |
| (3) A booklet must be bound in a manner that will enable it to be easily removed from and replaced in a volume. |
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| Subsequent revision of revised edition of Acts |
10.—(1) The Commissioners may, from time to time after the revised edition of Acts comes into force, cause to be published —| (a) | a revised edition of any Act that they consider has been extensively amended; | | (b) | a revised edition of any new Act enacted, other than an Act the sole or substantial effect of which was to amend other Acts; | | (c) | either separately or together with any other such enactment or instrument, a new revised edition of any treaty or convention and other instruments already included in the revised edition of Acts that they consider has been extensively amended; | | (d) | any treaties, conventions and other instruments enacted, made or agreed to that they consider may usefully be published; and | | (e) | a new table of contents, a chronological table of Acts and a list of the latest edition of each booklet containing an Act included in the revised edition of Acts and, in the case of Acts which have been published or revised in loose‑leaf form, a list of those Acts and the pages thereof which have been revised. [2/2012; 4/2021] |
| (2) The Commissioners may from time to time cause to be published a new revised edition of any Act, treaty, convention or other instrument which has not been amended. [4/2021] |
(3) A publication under subsection (1) or (2) may —| (a) | be in electronic form, in the form of a booklet or in a loose‑leaf form; and [Act 5 of 2025 wef 09/03/2025] | | (b) | include any notes, indexes, instructions or other information that the Commissioners consider useful. [4/2021] |
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| Powers and duties of Commissioners under section 10 |
11.—(1) For the purposes of section 10, the Commissioners may exercise and perform any of the powers and duties conferred or imposed upon them by this Act in the preparation of the revised edition of Acts.| (2) Every edition of any Act, treaty, convention or other instrument published pursuant to section 10 must contain the description referred to in section 9(1) except that for the reference to the 2020 Revised Edition there must be substituted a reference to the year in which the edition is published. [4/2021] [Act 5 of 2025 wef 09/03/2025] |
| (3) The Commissioners must transmit to the President a copy of every edition of any Act, treaty, convention or other instrument published under section 10 and with effect from such date as the President may specify by order in the Gazette any such edition of any Act, treaty, convention or other instrument is, in all courts and for all purposes, the sole and only proper law of Singapore in respect of that Act, treaty, convention or other instrument. [Act 5 of 2025 wef 09/03/2025] |
| (4) Every edition of any Act, treaty, convention or other instrument must, as soon as possible after the publication of the order, be presented to Parliament. [Act 5 of 2025 wef 09/03/2025] |
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| 11A. [Repealed by Act 5 of 2025 wef 09/03/2025] |
| Publication of lists of titles of current Acts |
| 12. The Commissioners may from time to time cause to be published in the Gazette a list of the titles of all Acts in force in Singapore and the year of the last published edition thereof. |
| Validity of Acts not affected by omission from revised edition of Acts |
| 13. An Act omitted from the revised edition of Acts, other than any Act omitted under section 4, is not to be deemed to be without force and validity by reason only of the fact that it is so omitted. |
| Saving of existing subsidiary legislation |
| 14. All subsidiary legislation made under the Acts in the revised edition of Acts or in any subsequent revision of Acts made pursuant to section 10 or under other lawful authority and having legislative effect, and in force on the date the revised edition of Acts or the subsequent revision of Acts (as the case may be) comes into force, continues in force until otherwise provided for. [4/2021] |
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