Sedition Act (Singapore)

Sedition Act 1948
Old Parliament House, photographed in January 2006
Federal Legislative Council, Federation of Malaya
Long title An Act for the punishment of sedition.
Citation	Sedition Ordinance 1948 (No. 14 of 1948, Malaya), 2020 Revised Edition—Sedition Act 1948 (Singapore)
Enacted by	Federal Legislative Council, Federation of Malaya
Enacted	6 July 1948[1]
Royal assent	15 July 1948[1]
Commenced	19 July 1948 (Peninsular Malaysia);[1][2] extended to Singapore on 28 May 1964[3]
Repealed	2 November 2022
Legislative history
Bill title	Sedition Bill 1948
Introduced by	E. P. S. Bell (Acting Attorney-General).
First reading	6 July 1948[4]
Second reading	6 July 1948[4]
Third reading	6 July 1948[4]
Repealed by
Sedition (Repeal) Act 2021
Status: Repealed

The Sedition Act 1948 was a Singaporean statute law which prohibited seditious acts and speech; and the printing, publication, sale, distribution, reproduction and importation of seditious publications. The essential ingredient of any offence under the Act was the finding of a "seditious tendency", and the intention of the offender is irrelevant. The Act also listed several examples of what is not a seditious tendency, and provides defences for accused persons in a limited number of situations.

A notable feature of the Sedition Act was that in addition to punishing actions that tend to undermine the administration of government, the Act also criminalized actions which promoted feelings of ill-will or hostility between different races or classes of the population. In contrast to arrests and prosecutions in the 1950s and 1960s which involved allegations of fomenting disaffection against the government, those in the 21st century such as the District Court cases of Public Prosecutor v. Koh Song Huat Benjamin (2005) and Public Prosecutor v. Ong Kian Cheong (2009) had centred around acts and publications tending to have the latter effect. Academics had raised concerns about whether the Sedition Act was satisfactorily interpreted in those cases, and whether the use of "feelings" as a yardstick to measure seditious tendencies is appropriate.

In Ong Kian Cheong, the accused persons argued that in order for section 3(1)(e) of the Act to be consistent with the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed to Singapore citizens by Article 14(1)(a) of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore (1985 Rev. Ed., 1999 Reprint), it had to be limited to actions expressly or impliedly inciting public disorder. The District Court disagreed, stating that if Parliament had intended to include this additional requirement, it would have expressly legislated to that effect in the Act. The High Court and Court of Appeal have yet to render any judgment on the issue. According to one legal scholar, Koh Song Huat Benjamin and Ong Kian Cheong indicate that in Singapore freedom of speech is not a primary right, but is qualified by public order considerations couched in terms of racial and religious harmony. It has also been posited that if Article 14 is properly interpreted, section 3(1)(e) of the Sedition Act is not in line with it.

On 2 November 2022, the Sedition Act was repealed.^[5]