SDP’s arguments in defence of statements on PMET jobs 'hopelessly flawed': AGC

SINGAPORE — Lawyers for the Attorney-General on Friday (Jan 17) outlined arguments on why a “reasonable person” would have understood statements made by the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) on job figures to have a meaning that was demonstrably false.

Deputy Attorney-General Hri Kumar Nair, a Senior Counsel, was leading a team of lawyers appearing in chambers in the High Court to oppose an application by the SDP to have correction directions made by Manpower Minister Josephine Teo set aside.

The correction directions related to an article published on the SDP website, two Facebook posts and a graphic that Mrs Teo said was misleading.

The case is the first challenge to correction orders issued under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma), which came into force in October last year. The hearing started on Thursday.

In his submissions on behalf of the Attorney-General, the respondent to the SDP application, Mr Nair said the false statement of fact by the SDP, as determined by Mrs Teo, was that “local PMET (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) retrenchment has been rising”.

He added that the relevant sentence was: “The SDP’s proposal comes amidst a rising proportion of Singapore PMETs getting retrenched.”

This appeared in a June 8, 2019 article by SDP.

Mr Nair said a reasonable interpretation of the sentence, in the context of the article, was that an increasing number of local PMETs were being retrenched. He added that statistics from the manpower ministry showed that this was not the case.

Addressing the Pofma regime more broadly, he said that while a statement might have several possible meanings as understood reasonably by an ordinary reader, it would be false under Pofma “as long as one of the meanings it is capable of bearing is false and misleading”.

In his submissions, Mr Nair also said that the SDP’s arguments to prove that their statements were factual were “hopelessly flawed”.

He also said that the SDP did not present any direct data to support its claims.

Mr Nair delivered his arguments before Justice Ang Cheng Hock in chambers after the SDP completed their submissions on Friday.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, SDP’s chairman Paul Tambyah said that the court’s judgment has been reserved, and that the SDP would have until next Wednesday to file their written submissions.

They would be seeking legal advice from lawyers in the meantime.

In rebutting SDP’s points, Mr Nair laid out the following:

1. How the statement would be interpreted by most readers

AG’s argument: In his submissions, Mr Nair said that a “reasonable person” would understand the statement to mean that local PMET retrenchment has been increasing.

“An ordinary reader is not expected to read articles with cautious or critical care, and may engage in certain amount of loose thinking,” read the submission.

2. SDP’s statement about the “rising proportion” of retrenched PMETs did not say what the numbers were a proportion of

SDP’s argument: In their application to Mrs Teo to set aside the correction directions, the party said that they were referring to local PMETs being retrenched as a share of all locals retrenched.

AG’s argument: The “plain and obvious meaning” to an ordinary reader would be to assume that SDP was referring to how the number of local PMET retrenchments was rising in proportion to the total number of PMET workers.

SDP’s argument: The party said that their statement was based on news articles by The Straits Times and Yahoo.

AG’s argument: The SDP did not reference those news reports in their June 8 article. It was also clear from The Straits Times article what proportion it is measuring. The SDP has “cherry-picked” from The Straits Times news report and presented a different narrative.

3. SDP’s statement did not refer to any specific time period.

SDP’s argument: They used data from 2010 onwards to argue that there is a longer-term upward trend in local PMET retrenchment.

AG’s argument: A “reasonable reader” would understand SDP’s statement to refer to the current or most recent trend. It is “disingenuous” of SDP to “contrive” to rely on data going back to 2010.

“It is a blatant attempt to manipulate the available statistics in order to ignore the obvious downward trend in recent years and to artificially demonstrate an upward trend,” said Mr Nair.

4. What MOM data showed

AG’s argument: Whether in absolute numbers or as a proportion of retrenched local PMETs out of all local PMET workers, manpower ministry data showed that there is a downward trend.

Mr Nair also said that the burden to prove their statement is true rests on the SDP.