Leader of the House, Minister Indranee Rajah, on the Determination on Committee of Privileges Findings on the Conduct of Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Faisal Manap (Jul 2026)

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a Ministerial Statement to this House regarding the Determination on the Committee of Privileges Findings on the Conduct of Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Faisal Manap.

On 14 January 2026, this House debated and passed a Motion on “Expression of Regret at the Conduct of Mr Pritam Singh and Consideration of His Suitability to Continue as the Leader of the Opposition”.

The resolutions in that Motion relating to Mr Singh were all dealt with and concluded on that day. One matter, however, remained outstanding.

Members will recall that in the 5^th limb of that Motion, this House noted “that the High Court judgment and the Committee’s findings have implications for Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr [Faisal Manap], which have to be considered separately”.

That is unfinished business which has to be dealt with. The question is what to do with the findings regarding Ms Lim and Mr Faisal in the Committee of Privileges Report on the Complaint against Ms Raeesah Khan for Untruth Spoken in Parliament, specifically the Committee’s finding that Ms Lim and Mr Faisal were untruthful to the COP about what was said at the 8 August meeting. I am now dealing with that today.

To recap briefly, a key issue in the COP inquiry was what was said at the meeting of 8 August 2021 between Ms Khan and the three senior WP leaders: Mr Pritam Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal. In particular, whether Ms Khan was told to suppress the fact that she had told an untruth in Parliament, i.e. that she should “take it to the grave”. The three WP leaders all denied this.

The Committee found otherwise.

As the findings against Mr Singh were the most serious, the House referred his case to the Public Prosecutor. This enabled the matter to be independently investigated and, if charges were brought, Mr Singh would be able to defend himself with the benefit of legal representation, and it would be for the Court to determine whether the charges were proven beyond reasonable doubt.

In relation to Ms Lim and Mr Faisal, the Committee found that they had lied about what was said at the meeting of 8 August. The Report stated “Ms Lim and Mr Faisal attended the 8 August meeting. They agreed (to Mr Singh’s advice) that the Untruth should be buried, and that Ms Khan would not have to tell the truth. They did not tell the truth to the Committee about that meeting.”

However, the Committee considered Ms Lim’s and Mr Faisal’s roles in the matter to be subsidiary, and noted that both had been somewhat helpful to the Committee, albeit in a limited way. The Committee therefore recommended that consideration of what, if anything, should be done about their conduct of stating untruths to the Committee should be deferred until the conclusion of investigations and/or criminal proceedings against Mr Singh.

Parliament accepted the Committee’s recommendation.

This was done to be fair to Ms Lim and Mr Faisal. If the investigations or court proceedings produced evidence inconsistent with the Committee's findings, Parliament could take that into account before deciding what, if any, action should be taken. Pending that process, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal were given the benefit of the doubt.

The criminal proceedings against Mr Singh concluded on 4 December 2025 when the High Court Judgement was delivered.

On 14 January 2026, Parliament passed a resolution noting that the High Court Judgement and the Committee’s findings had implications for Ms Lim and Mr Faisal.  Let me explain why.

During the Committee hearings:

a. Ms Lim denied that Mr Singh had told Ms Khan to take her Untruth to the grave. She said that there was no discussion on this point.

b. Mr Faisal’s evidence was that all three WP leaders did not remark on Ms Khan’s confession that she had lied and did not discuss what to do about it.

c. Thus at the COP hearings, both Ms Lim and Mr Faisal denied that Mr Singh had advised Ms Khan to take her lie to the grave, and said that the matter was not discussed.   

However, now, after a full investigation, trial and appeal dealing with this issue, the Courts have expressly and conclusively found that

a. at the 8 August 2021 meeting – at which all three WP leaders were present – Ms Khan’s Untruth was discussed; and

b. Mr Singh had lied when he denied that he told Ms Khan to “take it to the grave” – “it” meaning her Untruth.

The Court’s findings directly contradict Ms Lim’s and Mr Faisal’s evidence. It follows logically from the Court findings that their evidence to the Committee was not true. The Court Judgment effectively confirmed the findings of the Committee in relation to Ms Lim and Mr Faisal.

The question that arises is what is to be done in light of this. That is the unresolved issue that was deferred for decision.

In principle, if someone gave untrue evidence to a Committee of Parliament and did so knowingly or intentionally, this would be dishonourable conduct and a serious contempt of Parliament and would be dealt with under the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act 1962 (“PPIPA”). Ordinarily, if there is evidence someone has lied to a select committee, I would initiate the PPIPA process for dealing with such conduct.

However, there are certain timelines within which such action must take place. Let me explain.

In most cases, offences under the PPIPA can be dealt with fairly quickly and in the same session of Parliament. Occasionally the offence may occur in one session of Parliament but for whatever reason Parliament may not be able to deal with it immediately, and it is dealt with in a subsequent session of Parliament. However, in the interests of finality, there are constraints on this.

Under Section 22 of the PPIPA, Parliament has the power to punish offences which have been committed in either (a) the preceding session or (b) the last session of the preceding Parliament.

The previous Parliament (the 14^th Parliament) was first constituted on 24 August 2020. It was prorogued on 24 March 2023 and re-opened on 10 April 2023. It was dissolved on 15 April 2025. The 14^th Parliament therefore had two sessions.

In this case, the relevant conduct of Ms Lim and Mr Faisal took place in 2021, during the 1^st session of the 14^th Parliament.

Mr Singh was convicted by the District Court on 17 February 2025.  This was during the 2^nd session of the 14^th Parliament. However, Parliament rightly deferred consideration of Ms Lim’s and Mr Faisal’s cases until the Court process had concluded.

Those proceedings concluded only on 4 December 2025, when the High Court delivered its Judgement. By then, the 14^th Parliament had been dissolved, a General Election had taken place and the 15^th Parliament had begun.

Under Section 22 of the PPIPA, this 15^th Parliament can only deal with offences committed either in this session of the 15^th Parliament, or during the 2^nd session of the 14^th Parliament. As the conduct in question took place during the 1^st session of the 14^th Parliament, it is no longer open to this 15^th Parliament to impose any penalties in respect of this conduct under the PPIPA.

This does not mean that Parliament is without recourse. The House could, if it wished, pass a motion to express regret at such conduct.  Such a motion would serve to signal Parliament’s disapproval, as it did in Mr Singh’s case in January this year. However, it should be noted that in the January motion, this House had already signalled its clear disapproval of lying to Parliament or its committees.

Conclusion

Given the very specific circumstances of this case, it is my view that no further action need be taken by this House in relation to the Committee’s finding regarding Ms Lim and Mr Faisal.

Had the timelines been different, I would have proposed a different course of action. This outcome has happened because even though this House was entitled to act on the Committee’s findings in 2021, it decided to give Ms Lim and Mr Faisal the benefit of the doubt for the time being.  Even though the Committee’s findings have now been effectively confirmed by the High Court Judgement, the law, in this case the time bar provisions of PPIPA, must be observed. 

Unless any Member objects, we can now bring this matter to a close.