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SINGAPORE: Mr Lee Hsien Yang has been given court injunctions restraining him from making defamatory allegations against two ministers over their rental of black-and-white bungalows at Ridout Road.
The injunctions, which were sought by Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, were granted by the High Court in a judgment released on Monday (Nov 27) explaining the decision.
Justice Goh Yihan ruled in favour of the two ministers, in the absence of Mr Lee's indication of whether or not he was contesting the defamation claims.
Hearings to decide on what damages Mr Lee is to pay to the two ministers will be fixed at a later date.
Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan had sued Mr Lee for defamation over remarks he made in a Facebook post on Jul 23.
In the 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 give them preferential treatment and paying for renovations to 26 and 31 Ridout Road.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau found in a report released in June that there had been no wrongdoing or preferential treatment given to the two ministers.
Both Cabinet ministers had sent lawyers' letters to Mr Lee in July, saying they would sue unless he apologised, withdrew his allegations and paid damages to be donated to charity.
Mr Lee, the brother of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, did not comply.
The suits went ahead, with the ministers being allowed to serve papers to Mr Lee via Facebook Messenger as it was impractical to serve them on him personally in the United Kingdom.
Mr Lee and his wife, Mrs Lee Suet Fern, had left Singapore after declining to attend a police interview in July 2022 over a separate matter.
In a judgment dated Nov 2 but released on Monday, Justice Goh Yihan ordered for hearings to assess damages in both ministers' cases to be fixed.
He also granted injunctions restraining Mr Lee from "publishing or disseminating the false and defamatory allegations" that the ministers had acted "corruptly and for personal gain".
Justice Goh ordered that Mr Lee pay both ministers costs, which will be fixed at the hearing in which damages are assessed.
He entered judgment in favour of the two ministers based on the Rules of Court, which state that a claimant may apply for judgment to be given against a defendant if the defendant fails to file and serve his notice of intention within a stipulated period.
A notice of intention refers to a notice to a court informing of a defendant's intention to contest a claim or not.
Justice Goh said that even if he had not entered judgment according to the Rules of Court, he would have found that the ministers had established their cases of defamation against Mr Lee in a way sufficient to support the injunction orders they sought.
DEFAMATORY MEANING EVIDENT
He said he would have found that the ministers had made out a cause of action in their defamation claims. Their claims remain unchallenged because Mr Lee had not filed a notice of intention.
Because Mr Lee had not filed this notice, the judge said he was unable to take into account any "countervailing material regarding the claims" and instead was confined to assessing whether the ministers had made out a cause of action.
Justice Goh said a reasonable reader reading Mr Lee's post would have understood it to mean that trust had been squandered because of the two ministers' allegedly corrupt conduct, from which they have gained personally.
The reader would have understood from Mr Lee's post that the corrupt conduct and personal gain were on account of their lease of the Ridout Road properties from "the agency that one of them controls", by "felling trees and "getting state-sponsored renovations".
This would have been sufficient to establish a defamatory meaning, said Justice Goh.
He found that there were "strong reasons" to believe that Mr Lee would repeat the defamatory allegations.
First, Mr Lee refused to remove the post after he was asked to do so by a letter of demand on Jul 27, said Justice Goh.
Mr Lee also "continued to refer, draw attention to, and invite readers in Singapore to read" the post, through a series of other Facebook posts made in July.
"Further, the defendant has also repeatedly published Facebook posts ... to persons in Singapore that refer to and provide updates on these proceedings," said Justice Goh.
A check by CNA on Monday afternoon showed that the Jul 23 post was still up on Mr Lee's public Facebook page, with the defamatory lines replaced with "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX". A correction notice had also been included under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sin...lee-hsien-yang-ridout-road-defamation-3948291
