CO537-1651 — Page 185

Minutes of the Fourth Meeting of the Municipal Constitution Committee held on the 15th July, 1946, at the Municipal Conference Room,

Municipal Building, at 2.15 p.m.

Present:

Other members;

Mr. J. Laycock, Chairman Messrs. W. Bartley,

H. P. Bryson

Lee Chin Tuan

Ten Chin Tuan

N.A. Mallol

F.J. Kemlo and

Cho' Abdul Aziz bin Ishak.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 9th July, 1946, which had been circula ted were amended. The meeting decided to have the amended minutes circulated once more for confirmation.

The Chairman proceeded to discuss sentence by sentence the suggestions for draft report which had been circulated. Apart from the amendments and improvements made to certain minor details and the phraseology of the draft, three important questions arising out of the draft were discussed.

The y

were:

(1) Whether the Committee had resolved that the Governor's power of nomination was absolute or only subject to the requirements of representation to protect certain important minorities, that is to say, if minorities were already adequately represented, the Governor should not exercise his power of nomination and any reserved seats not used should revert to elected seats, involving bye-elections,

(2) the term of office for nominated Commissioners, and

(3) the additional property qualifications for the office of

Commissioner,.

In regard to the first question, Mr. Bartley said that the Committee had not resolved that the Governor should only exercise his power of nomination if the minorities were not adequately represented. The Governor had power to nominate all the one-third of the number of Commissioners and what the Committee decided was to recommend to the Governor to use his power to even up the form of representation if necessary. This was the resolution passed at the meeting hold on the 2nd July, 1946. The Chairman, however, said that he thought that that resolution was passed on the under- standing that it was based on what he had said earlier in that moeting, that is, the reservation of seats should not be made absoluto but should be decided by the Governor a few months before the election. The reservation should be provisional until shortly before the time of election arrived, and if there was already adequate representation for that section of the Community, reservation might be unnecessary. After further discussion, the meeting decided to leave out for the time being that part of the draft dealing with the exercise of the power of nomination by the Governor.

On the second question, Mr. Mollal, who agreed that the normal term of office for Commissioners should be three years, proposed that no nominated Commissioner should be re-nominated so as to serve for more then two consecutive terms without interruption. Mr. Bryson seconded this proposal and the mecting unanimously adopted it.

On the third question the Chairman drow the attention of the meeting to the provisions in the Municipal Ordinance, and the meeting agreed not to make any alteration, that is, the candidate must be a ratepayer of the Municipality of Singapore or occupier of any premises therein of an annua 1 value of not less then seven hundred and twenty dollars.

The Chairman pointed out that the draft report amended and agreed upon at each meeting could of course be improved and amended in subsequent meetings as and when new decisions were reached by the Committee.

On the question of extending the Municipal boundaries in specified areas, Mr. Bryson thought that it was outside the scope of the Committee. He said that it was sufficient for the Committee to have arrived at the general recommend tion for an extension of the Municipal boundaries to any

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