Mr Speaker, Sir, you may recall that I rose to speak against the Bill on its Second Reading. As a layman, I had certain misgivings and I raised two relevant points to substantiate my objection. The two issues I raised, if I may quote, are as follows: (i) 'Singapore can ill afford the luxury of having three Judges to be fully occupied with one trial;' and (ii) I objected to clause 3 of the Bill which sought to amend Chapter 21, section 178 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Sir, in support of the second point, I also said: 'If three learned Judges cannot arrive at a decision, then I suggest that some doubts have been raised and I feel the case deserves an acquittal, and not another trial before another court, consisting of three Judges of the High Court other than those who had tried him previously.' Sir, the amendments to the Bill as contained in the Report of the Select Committee have, in my view, taken care of the objections that I raised then, instead of the luxury of having three Judges trying one case, now we have the bare necessity of two Judges sitting in one case at a time. In fact, a member of a legal firm which almost exclusively deals with criminal cases has advocated in his written memorandum trial by two Judges instead of three. My objections to clause 3 of the Bill which sought to amend Chapter 21, section 178, have also been met. The Bill as amended now reads as follows: 'Where the two Judges fail to reach an unanimous decision as to the guilt of an accused charged with an offence in respect of which punishment of death is authorised by law, he shall not he convicted of that offence but may, if the two Judges agree, be convicted of any lesser offence of which he could have been charged based on the same facts: Provided that where the failure to reach an unanimous decision as to the guilt of the accused rests on the ground that one of the two Judges has acquitted him by reason of the provisions of section 362 of this Code, then the accused shall not be convicted of the offence with which he has been charged but shall be dealt with in accordance with the provisions of section 363 of this Code.' In other words, if the two Judges do not unanimously agree on the guilt of the accused, the accused has to be acquitted. With this new amendment, no accused person will be tried twice for the same offence or placed in peril of his life twice as originally proposed in the Bill . Sir, as I have said earlier, the Report o the Select Committee has taken care of both the objections which I raised during the Second Reading of this Bill. Sir, I had the privilege of being a Member of the Select Committee which considered the Bill. After hearing the views expressed by the various persons who gave oral evidence before the Select Committee and reading the representations submitted, I am thoroughly convinced that jury trials are not workable in Singapore. Sir, we also heard oral evidence from some persons who had sat as jurors. We heard that in one case involving special jurors, who were supposed to possess high educational qualifications, the foreman declared the verdict to be unanimous, as the Minister pointed out earlier, when in actual fact there was not even a majority decision. One juror claimed that the accused person should have been acquitted on the grounds of self-defence when neither the prosecution nor the defence ever raised the issue of self-defence, as there was no question of self-defence at all. Another juror admitted that he did not pay much attention to the case. Sir, the language used in our courts is English. We had a special juror who was classified as a special juror because of his educational qualifications and yet who pronounced the word "unanimous" as "universe" and "culpable homicide" which sounded like "cumable suicide". Sir, in the case where the foreman wrongly announced the verdict to the Judge, his fellow jurors did not have any qualms about it but happily went home without attempting to draw the court's attention to the foreman's mistake. One foreman said he was trembling, sweating and was nervous on the day the trial ended. In reply to a question whether he and his fellow jurors were able to follow the evidence, he said about one or two or maybe three did not seem to be able to follow the case properly. A leading criminal lawyer, who also gave oral evidence after hearing the recorded testimony by the jurors, freely confessed that, "I recognise that three out of the seven jurors I heard did not strike me as having the quality for responsible judgment." Sir, if amongst the seven jurors, three did not follow the case properly, I submit it is not worth having jury trials. We were also told by people who had been jurors that one man amongst the jurors can sway the decision of other jurors. Sir, one juror who was so influenced perhaps by the Perry Mason series in our T.V. programmes said that in the case where he was a juror, if it had been tried in an American court the accused would have been acquitted if he had a good lawyer. And this was the very same juror who had voted for a verdict of not guilty. But when he found that there was a tie in the voting, he immediately said to the foreman, "Can I just change my verdict to "Manslaughter"?" Sir, he was convinced the man was not guilty, but on finding that there was a tie in the voting, he immediately decided to vote for a verdict of guilty. The foreman in that case said the juror had changed his mind immediately and the juror himself admitted that it took him about three minutes to change his mind. On his own admission, within three minutes, he had changed his mind from letting a man free to sending him to gaol. Another juror, though she knew that the foreman was going to announce a verdict different from that arrived at by the jurors, disclaimed her responsibility by justifying in her own words:"..if we continued arguing, it would never end." One juror, when asked for her reaction when she heard the incorrect verdict conveyed to the Judge, said, "I think we had done our duty. We had cast our vote and that is that." Sir, an incorrect verdict had been given and this juror maintained that she had done her duty. Sir, in that particular case, as the Minister pointed out earlier, the verdict reached was four in favour of culpable homicide and three in favour of guilty of first-degree murder. Sir, you are aware, and as the Minister pointed out earlier, that we need at least a five to two majority to call it a majority decision. The foreman announced that there was an unanimous verdict for culpable homicide and the accused was accordingly sentenced to imprisonment. The interesting point is, we may ask ourselves, what if the voting had taken place differently? If four had voted for murder and three had voted for culpable homicide and if the foreman had announced that there was a verdict of guilty of murder, then the accused would have been sent to the gallows. A grave and irreparable act of injustice would have been done. Another member of the legal profession, who represented the Council of the Singapore Advocates and Solicitors Society, after having heard the recorded testimony of seven jurors, also freely confessed: 'After hearing the tape and reading the transcript that was handed to us, I find the context of the transcript very shocking. Never had I imagined that this was the level of the so-called richer experience and understanding that the juries are being credited with. If this is representative of the whole of the jury system, then I say, Sir, that the jury system is not working at all.' Sir, after having the benefit of hearing some jurors and having read the written representations from members of the legal profession as well as others, I have no doubt whatsoever that the jury system has not worked and will not work properly in Singapore. In fact, a member of the legal profession in his written submission admitted that if he had committed a crime, he would rather have a jury try his case in the hope that his counsel would either confuse the jurors sufficiently so as to cause them to disagree among themselves, or succeed in setting off an emotional chain reaction by appealing to their pity or sympathy irrespective of the justice of the case. On the other hand, he said, if he were not guilty, he would choose a Judge because, through his experience and training, he would have a greater ability to discern the truth. Sir, I cannot agree with him more after having heard how our, jury system actually functions in practice. The pertinent question to be decided by us is whether jury trial or the abolition of jury trial serves to promote the interest and ideals of justice in actual practice. I am inclined to vote for the second choice and I, therefore, rise in support of the Bill as amended in accordance with the Report of the Select Committee. 5.14 p.m.