Shanmugam, Balakrishnan take the stand in hearing to determine damages against Lee Hsien Yang over defamatory Ridout Road post

SINGAPORE: The hearing to determine the damages to be paid by Mr Lee Hsien Yang for defaming two Cabinet ministers started in the High Court on Thursday (May 2), with both claimants leaving the amount to the court.

Both Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan were present in court and represented by lawyer Davinder Singh, while Mr Lee was absent and unrepresented. 

The hearing on Thursday lasted less than half an hour, with the claimants' opening statement and affidavits of evidence-in-chief submitted to court. 

After the hearing, Mr Singh told the media that his team would be leaving the amount of damages to be determined to the court. He declined to comment on whether Mr Lee had responded to the team's efforts to reach out to him. 

Mr Singh told the court during proceedings that his team had reached out to Mr Lee several times, providing the date, time and venue of hearings. He added that his team was not informed by any counsel that they had been instructed by Mr Lee. 

Mr Lee, the brother of outgoing Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, left the country with his wife, Mrs Lee Suet Fern, in 2022 over a matter not related to his current defamation suit.

Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan had sued Mr Lee for defamation over remarks he made about their rental of state bungalows at Ridout Road on Jul 23, 2023. 

In a Facebook post, Mr Lee wrote that "two ministers have leased state-owned mansions from the agency that one of them controls, felling trees and getting state-sponsored renovations".

According to Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan, Mr Lee's post accused them of acting corruptly and for personal gain by having the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) give them preferential treatment and paying for renovations to 26 and 31 Ridout Road.

The remarks came after the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) released findings a month prior, stating that there had been no wrongdoing or preferential treatment given to the two ministers.

Both Cabinet ministers had sent lawyers' letters to Mr Lee last July, saying they would sue unless he apologised, withdrew his allegations and paid damages to be donated to charity.

After Mr Lee did not comply, the Cabinet ministers served papers to him via Facebook Messenger. 

Justice Goh Yihan ruled in favour of the two ministers in November last year, ordering that Mr Lee pay both ministers damages.  

Justice Goh also granted injunctions against Mr Lee, restraining him from making defamatory allegations against the two ministers. 

In the ministers' opening statement, they noted that the effect of the judgement issued in November was that Mr Lee was "not entitled to dispute the liability at the assessment hearing" and that it was only the "amount of damages (and costs) which remains to be determined". 

They also noted that the effect of Mr Lee's failure to file a defence was that the facts in the ministers' statements of claim were to be taken as "admitted" by Mr Lee. 

Both ministers then took the stand consecutively for a few minutes each to confirm that their evidence in documents were true and correct. The judge had no questions for either minister and released them as witnesses. 

Mr Shanmugam left shortly after while the hearing was still ongoing and Dr Balakrishnan departed at the close of the hearing. Both were later seen leaving the building in cars.

As the evidence was not contested, Mr Singh proceeded to give closing submissions on the claimants' cases.

Justice Goh had several queries on the opening statement, including how cited paragraphs from past cases supported the team's arguments on damages. He asked the team to submit further submissions to the court in a week's time. 

The judge then reserved judgement and said he would give his decision on damages and costs at a later date. 

CNA has reached out to both ministers and Mr Lee for comment.

ARGUMENTS FOR DAMAGES AND AGGRAVATED DAMAGES

The ministers' opening statement noted factors to be considered by the court when assessing damages:

• The nature and gravity of the defamation.
• The conduct, position and standing of the ministers and Mr Lee. 
• The mode and extent of the publication.
• The natural indignation of the court at the injury caused to the ministers. 
• Mr Lee's conduct from the time of the defamatory statement's publication. 
• The presence of malice.

The lawyers for the ministers argued that the more closely the defamatory statement touches on the claimants' personal integrity, professional reputation, honour and core attributes of his personality, the more serious it was likely to be, with damages rising in proportion to severity. 

The greater the claimants' standing, the heavier the damages, they argued, pointing out that both ministers were public leaders and persons of "highest integrity" whose standing are "beyond question".

Likewise, the greater the defendant's standing, the greater the impact of the defamation and degree of injury, they said.

Mr Lee was "well known in Singapore" and regularly published posts on issues concerning Singaporeans. Furthermore, Mr Lee's Facebook page, where he is described as a "public figure", had "89k followers".

The lawyers also highlighted Mr Lee's conduct throughout the matter as part of their arguments. Mr Lee had been given a chance to apologise, remove the post and pay S$25,000 (US$18,386) to each minister, a sum which would then be donated to charity.

However Mr Lee chose to "wage a public campaign to gain sympathy and support from Singaporeans" against the ministers by accusing them of making false claims and demanding false apologies.

The lawyers observed that Mr Lee had not taken any effort to ascertain the truth of his offending words, even after CPIB had issued its findings. This was sufficient for a finding of malice, they argued. 

They also referred to an earlier case where PM Lee had sued blogger and financial advisor Leong Sze Hian for defamation. Mr Leong was ordered to pay PM Lee S$133,000 in 2021.

While Mr Leong had removed the defamatory post after three days, Mr Lee had continued to "double down" on his offending words and only removed them when ordered to do so by the court, said the lawyers. 

As of Thursday, the Jul 23, 2023 post was still up on Mr Lee's public Facebook page, with the defamatory lines replaced with "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX". It garnered around 2,700 reactions.

A correction notice had also been included under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).