SDP adds a sentence to statement after court reminder to ensure its account of Pofma trial is accurate
SINGAPORE — The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) has added a sentence to a statement on its website that the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) had taken issue with.
The statement relates to the opposition party’s court challenge against the Minister of Manpower’s correction direction over a published article and two Facebook posts that the Government said contained falsehoods and a misleading graphic.
The directive was issued under Singapore’s fake-news laws, the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma).
SDP’s move comes after it was reminded by High Court Judge Ang Check Hock on Thursday (Jan 23) to make sure that all of its statements regarding its court proceedings are accurate.
The hearings over the court appeal took place on Jan 16 and 17.
On Thursday, another hearing was conducted after the AGC complained about a statement SDP had put out on Jan 18 titled, “Whether a statement is true or false cannot be ‘based on the minister’s interpretation’”.
Representing the manpower ministry, AGC sought a fresh hearing before Justice Ang — the same judge who presided over SDP’s court challenge — as it took issue with the Jan 18 statement, as well as one published on SDP’s website on Jan 16 — when the hearing was underway.
AGC said its arguments were misrepresented in SDP’s article, which falsely suggested that the minister’s interpretation of a statement would determine its meaning under Pofma.
AGC clarified that it is the courts that will ultimately determine whether a statement indeed bears the same meaning as the one the minister had when issuing a correction direction.
During Thursday's hearing, SDP said it would make the necessary corrections.
WHAT WAS THE JAN 18 ARTICLE ABOUT?
In its Jan 18 article, SDP cited a Straits Times (ST) report that quoted Deputy Attorney-General Hri Kumar Nair as saying that “the minister who initiates a Pofma direction will look at the article or statement in question, and determine what he believes to be its meaning”.
“A correction direction can then be issued based on the minister’s interpretation,” Mr Nair was quoted as saying by SDP, which called this a “shocking government stand”.
On Monday, the AGC accused SDP of having blatantly cherry-picked Mr Nair’s comments and omitting critical parts of the ST report.
Among other things, AGC said SDP had left out Mr Nair’s rejection of the party’s claim that the meaning of the article or statement in question was up to the minister.
It also omitted Mr Nair’s comment that the appeal would be decided based on how the judge believed a reasonable member of the public would understand the statements, and the courts would have the final word.
The party has added this line to its original statement: “Mr Kumar (the Deputy Attorney-General) also said that this interpretation can be accepted or rejected by the Judge hearing the matter.”
SDP had earlier insisted that it had not misrepresented what Mr Nair said.
“It is the government’s position that ‘the minister who initiates a Pofma direction will look at the article or statement in question and determine what he believes to be its meaning’. This is a direct quote from the ST report,” SDP said, in a letter to the Supreme Court.
“But the SDP does not believe that this is the end of the matter under the Act, and the SDP did not at any time say that it was. Nor did we say in our article of Jan 18 that this was the AG’s position. We knew that Pofma had a provision for us to take the matter to court.
“This means that we knew that the court would have the final say, that is, the judge will make the final determination on the government’s stand.”
