A private legal firm was appointed as the coordinator for Singapore’s anti-haze probes, instead of the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), as it can go into a foreign jurisdiction, Senior Minister K Shanmugam said on Wednesday.
He was responding to a question from MP Sylvia Lim (WP-Aljunied) on why the AGC was not tasked with the coordinating role, despite having a division devoted to international affairs.
“The answer is very simple. They may not be able to exercise their powers in a foreign jurisdiction because they would be treated as Singapore government agencies, and it’s quite likely that they would not even be given access to the country, let alone conduct investigations,” said Mr Shanmugam, who chairs the Homefront Crisis Ministerial Committee.
“So it had to be structured as the companies appointing private firms to do the work – investigative firms, law firms, and others are now the companies’ appointees, and therefore they will have the ability to go into foreign jurisdictions.”
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