The Transboundary Haze Pollution Act has resulted in zero prosecutions since its 2014 inception because critical land records and witnesses remain outside Singapore's jurisdiction. Enforcement challenges were underscored in 2016 when a foreign director fled Singapore instead of attending a mandatory interview. In response, upcoming November legislative amendments will empower a newly formed specialist panel to hold businesses legally accountable if they refuse to cooperate with independent operational probes.
Key points
Proposed legislative changes will mandate that targeted firms fund and appoint specialist…: Proposed legislative changes will mandate that targeted firms fund and appoint specialist panel assessors to audit their supply chains.
Cross-border limitations on gathering foreign operational records and witness testimonies…: Cross-border limitations on gathering foreign operational records and witness testimonies have prevented any successful prosecutions to date.
The government will table urgent statutory amendments during the November parliamentary s…: The government will table urgent statutory amendments during the November parliamentary sitting to penalize companies that refuse to cooperate.
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The challenges facing Singapore’s haze law — and where it can gain more teeth
With no company prosecuted yet under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act, legal experts map out the possible ways to enhance the law and other regulations in order to proactively manage risks of future haze incidents.
SINGAPORE: More than a decade after Singapore enacted its anti-haze law, not a single company or director has ever been prosecuted under the statute.
With haze originating from Indonesian forest and peatland fires once again cloaking the region in recent weeks, the absence of convictions has spurred scrutiny over the legislation’s teeth.
Singapore has since said that it will strengthen the law in the next parliamentary sitting in November.
Speaking to CNA, legal experts said the lack of legal conclusions over the past decade risks casting the 2014 law as a “paper tiger”, though the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act (THPA) already possesses extra-territorial reach and has exerted commercial pressure in other ways.
Since the Act took effect, 26 notices have been issued: six in 2015, and 20 this year,…
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