1.
What is the
The Singapore Statues Online is a legal
research tool which offers the public free access to the full text
consolidation of Acts of Parliament that are in force. The Singapore Statues Online is a subset
of the Versioned Legislation Database (VLDB), the official database of Bills,
Acts and subsidiary legislation of
Related: How do I gain access to the Versioned Legislation Database (VLDB)?
2.
Can my organisation
create a hyperlink on our organisation’s Internet
website to an Act found on the
Yes, you may link, from your Internet website, to the Singapore Statutes Online website, provided that the following principles are observed:
(a) The entire page of the Singapore Statues Online (which consists of multiple frames) has to be displayed as is, that is, no hyperlinking to individual frames. This is because the URLs of individual frames may change with subsequent amendments to the legislation, and you should not reference individual frames to avoid your link being "broken" when the legislation is changed.
(b) The pages on Singapore Statues Online may not be embedded within or subsumed under another frame. This is to prevent ambiguity of the origin of the information. To retain the visitors on your organisation’s website, you may wish to link to Singapore Statues Online by opening up a new browser window when the user clicks on the hyperlink. One way to achieve this is to set the “TARGET” property of the anchor tag to “_BLANK” (i.e. <a href=”…” target=”_blank”>)
3.
How do I hyperlink to a specific Act?
To link to an Act of Parliament (Act) in Singapore Statues Online which has been assigned a Chapter Number, please use the following URL
http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_retrieve.pl?actno=REVED-xxx
and substitute “xxx” with the
relevant Act number.*
For example, to link to
the Bankruptcy Act, which is Chapter 20 (2000 Revised Edition), the correct
hyperlink is http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_retrieve.pl?actno=REVED-20
Where an Act does not have
a Chapter Number (eg. where it is a new Act or an
existing Act that has not yet been revised by the Law Revision Commissioners),
and you would need to use its Act Number instead. To hyperlink to an Act which was passed
in year “yyyy” as Act zz of
yyyy, the correct link would be
http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_version/cgi-bin/cgi_legdisp.pl?actno=yyyy-ACT-zz-N
replacing yyyy with the four-digit year,
and zz with
the Act number.* Nothing else,
including the trailing “N” should be changed.
Please note that the hyperlink will change
in two situations:
(a) if
you hyperlink to a Revised Edition of an Act which undergoes a subsequent
revision,, the hyperlink will change if the assigned Chapter Number for the
legislation is changed in the new Revised Edition;
(b) if you hyperlink to a new Act according to its Act Number (i.e.,
before the Act is revised for the first time), the hyperlink will have to
change when the Act is revised to refer to the Revised Edition Chapter Number
instead of the Act Number.
4.
How can we be kept informed of changes?
When you create a hyperlink, please send
an email to agc@agc.gov.sg stating the Act that you are hyperlinking and the URL of the page where the hyperlink is
used. We will endeavour
to keep users informed of changes to the way that Singapore Statues Online
hyperlinks are constructed.
However, the primary responsibility for ensuring accuracy and relevance
of hyperlinks lies with the organisation that is
creating the hyperlink. Please email us, at the email
address provided, if you have queries.
5.
Why can’t I find the Subsidiary
Legislation of any particular Act on
The Singapore Statues Online only contains
Acts which are in force. Full
information of any piece of legislation can be obtained from the VLDB.
Related: What is the Singapore Statutes
Online?
How do I gain access to the
Versioned Legislation Database (VLDB)?
6.
Why can’t I locate an Act that is already
in force on
The Singapore Statues Online is updated
once a month (generally on the 15th of the month). Thus, if the Act entered into force
after the last update, it would not appear on the Singapore Statues Online
until the next update. Acts that
were just published will also be available for free access on the eGazette website (www.egazette.com.sg) for about 5
days after publication.
Thereafter, the Acts are available via subscription from LawNet (www.lawnet.com.sg). New Acts and Amendment Acts are also
archived on the eGazette website (www.egazette.com.sg)
and available by subscription.
7.
How
do I gain access to the Versioned Legislation Database (VLDB)?
The VLDB is available online from LawNet (www.lawnet.com.sg), a legal portal
provided by Singapore Academy of Law, via monthly subscription or
pay-as-you-use scheme. The VLDB,
which contains the entire statute book of Singapore (namely, Bills, Acts,
Subsidiary Legislation and their supplements), is updated daily.
*Note: The Chapter/Act Number of a particular piece of legislation is shown in the top frame of the legislation.