Electronic Gazette and Legislation Bill passed providing for Electronic Gazette to be authoritative version

23 January 2025

On 7 January 2025, the Electronic Gazette and Legislation Bill (“Bill”) was passed in Parliament. The Bill seeks to amend various Acts to:

  • provide for the Gazette published on the prescribed website to be the authoritative version of the Gazette, and to provide for the administration of the electronic Gazette;
  • provide for electronic versions of revised editions of legislation to be authoritative;
  • abolish the use of the Gazette as an instrument of appointment; and
  • make related and consequential amendments.

The Bill was introduced in Parliament on 11 November 2024. Read more in our article “Electronic Gazette and Legislation Bill tabled for first reading; Gazette published on prescribed website to be authoritative version”.

Background

The Government Gazette is the official public record of legislation, appointments, and other official acts by the Government and other public bodies. It is also used by private entities to issue notices in fulfilment of statutory requirements. The Gazette is published by the Government Printer on the authority of the Government or pursuant to statutory requirements. Recognising the public’s greater reliance on the electronic Gazette, the Government has leveraged digital technology to improve and enhance the Gazette. The new electronic Gazette website was launched in September 2024 bringing significant improvements in usability, reliability, security, and resilience.

Currently, under section 48 of the Interpretation Act 1965, only the print Gazette is authoritative, i.e. only the print Gazette is prima facie evidence of its contents. This status is not accorded to the electronic Gazette. The primary objective of the Bill is to confer authoritative status on the electronic Gazette, as well as electronic versions of revised editions of legislation. Similar to the Gazette, revised legislation can be published both in print and electronically.

Provisions in the Bill

Authoritative status accorded to electronic Gazette 

The current section 48 of the Interpretation Act 1965 with be replaced with a new section 48, the key effect of which is to accord authoritative status to the electronic Gazette in the following ways:

  • Electronic Gazettes published on the prescribed website will be treated as prima facie evidence of the matters published within.
  • To the extent of any inconsistency, the electronic Gazette will prevail over all other versions of the Gazette.
  • The courts will be required to take judicial notice of the electronic Gazette, in addition to the print Gazette. This means that both print and electronic Gazettes need not be formally proved before they can be relied on in court.

Various amendments to Revised Editions of the Laws Act 1983

Consistent with proposed changes regarding the electronic Gazette, a new section 17A will be introduced in the Revised Editions of the Laws Act 1983 to provide that electronic versions of revised legislation will prevail over print versions, to the extent of any inconsistency. The amendments will also do away with the outdated requirement for revised legislation to be published in print before they can be published electronically. In addition, the Bill will delete provisions and language in the Revised Editions of the Laws Act 1983 that are peculiar to print versions of revised legislation, or premised on the primacy of such printed versions.

Statutory appointments

Currently, various Acts require that statutory appointments be made via Gazette notifications. As the use of the Gazette in this way is inconsistent with its function as a public record, the Bill will amend the relevant Acts to cease the use of the Gazette to make statutory appointments. Going forward, these statutory appointments will be made via other means, such as the issuance of an appointment letter.

As these statutory appointments are often of public interest, this Bill will generally impose requirements for these statutory appointments to be published in the Gazette. The new requirements will be directory in nature and are not meant to affect the validity of the appointments.

The Bill makes amendments to various Acts where references are made to materials printed by the Government Printer. As these materials could be published electronically in the electronic Gazette as well, the references are amended accordingly.

Reference materials

The following materials are available on Singapore Statutes Online sso.agc.gov.sg and the Ministry of Digital Development and Information website www.mddi.gov.sg: