The Singapore State Court has the power to issue a search warrant if there is non-compliance with orders to produce documents, or more generally, if the purposes of justice or of any investigation, inquiry, trial or other proceeding will be served.
There are instances where searches can be carried out even without search warrants. Such instances included:
- Search of property
- Search for stolen property – if the police has reasonable cause to suspect that you possess stolen property, or if they believe that for the past 12 months, the premises have been occupied by persons convicted of receiving stolen property, or harbouring thieves
- Search of a place in the event of an arrestable offence. For more information regarding arrestable offences, see (insert hyperlink on arrestable offences)
- Search of premises if suspected to be entered by a person who is to be arrested
- Search of premises of a person who is related to an arrestable offence
- Search of persons
- Search of a person who has been arrested for a non-bailable offence (a non-bailable offence is an offence where bail is not offered as of right)
- If a place is lawfully searched every person found in that place may be detained, and if the thing that is being searched for is capable of being concealed on a person, he may be searched for it.
