Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied): Sir, in Mandarin.
(In Mandarin): In my constituency, there are many elderly residents who are not proficient in English and they only understand Chinese, Malay and Tamil. When they need to access legal information, they face difficulties because most of the legal information provided by Government agencies is written in English.
MinLaw has indeed made some improvements in this regard. For example, translating the brochures of the Legal Aid Bureau and Public Defender’s Office into other official languages.
May I ask if MinLaw can provide other measures to assist this group in accessing legal information?
The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Law (Ms Rahayu Mahzam): Next, we are simplifying the application process for divorce matters in the Syariah Court. In November 2023, LAB launched eBantu. Applicants can use eBantu to get an estimate of the nafkah iddah and mutaah claimable. eBantu also uses a series of guided questions to help the applicant fill in originating documents. This can help applicants minimise form-filling errors, and be better informed of their rights and entitlements.
We are looking to translate the tool into the Malay language in the next phase of development. This is related to the point that our services need to be accessible to non-English speakers, which was also mentioned by Ms Sylvia Lim.
When an applicant approaches MinLaw for services, we will try to find officers who speak the applicant’s preferred language to assist the applicant. If this is not possible, we will find other ways to get translation done.
MinLaw also has non-English versions of brochures relating to some of our services.
The Chairman: Ms Sylvia Lim.
Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied): Thank you, Chairman. I have a clarification for Senior Parliamentary Secretary Ms Rahayu Mahzam on the access for non-English speakers.
Earlier on, she mentioned that there are brochures in different languages and indeed, it is true for some of the departments. But what I noted that was also very good that MinLaw did was that for the Community Mediation Centres, there are videos in different languages which are also narrated in the different languages and subtitled. So, this is very useful for our older residents.
I was hoping that MinLaw could also consider having videos in other aspects of community legal services so that we can direct our residents to watch them.
Ms Rahayu Mahzam: I thank the Member for her suggestion. Indeed, I think that would be a useful endeavour. We will take this back and see how best we can enhance this further.
Ministry of Law
29 February 2024 & 1 March 2024
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=budget-2356
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=budget-2360
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 