Jurists' body claims S'pore court compliant

THE International Commission of Jurists has charged the Singapore High Court with being compliant, saying it had bowed to pressure from the Government in the recent defamation suit brought by People's Action Party leaders against Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam.

It said the court's ruling on Monday that the Workers' Party chief was guilty of defaming Mr Goh "had done little to overcome its reputation for being improperly compliant" to the interest of the PAP.

The Geneva-based commission yesterday released a two-page press statement on the judgment made by Justice S. Rajendran, headlined "Singapore judiciary bows to executive in defamation suit".

This was accompanied by a 10-page report by Queen's Counsel Stuart Littlemore, the commission's observer at the week-long hearing in August, which saw Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong being cross-examined by Queen's Counsel George Carman, lawyer for Mr Jeyaretnam.

The statement said the court's award of $20,000 in damages and 60 per cent of the cost against Mr Jeyaratnam was "unduly harsh" because the WP chief would have to pay the same amounts to the other 10 PAP leaders who were also suing him for defamation.

In his report, Mr Littlemore said he found the judge's "undue deference" to Mr Goh in court most troubling.

"He came to the court as an ordinary citizen, not as the Prime Minister, but it is impossible to escape the impression that Justice Rajendran treated him as a litigant of higher status than he was entitled to."

He cited as evidence of the court's deference the fact that Mr Goh was served tea while in the witness box. "It was somewhat startling to see the court attendant serve the Prime Minister, when he was in the witness box under cross examination, with a pot of tea, milk and sugar, on a tray.

"No such refreshment was provided to Mr Jeyaretnam, but the event probably had more to do with the court attendant's priorities than with anything sinister." While noting that the proceedings had been conducted courteously and efficiently, with lawyers given ample time to make their case, he said the interventions by the judge were "so few as to be remarkable".

There were, however, two interventions which raised the observer's eyebrows. He noted that the judge had not wanted to allow Mr Carman to question the PM on the alleged "climate of fear" here.

But Mr Carman was allowed to carry on after Mr Goh's lawyer, QC Thomas Shields, intervened to say he would not object to the question if it was rephrased.

The second intervention took place when Mr Shields was completing his submissions. The judge asked several questions "that betrayed an almost total ignorance of the technicalities" of defamation law, said Mr Littlemore.

"The significance of appointing to such a sensitive case a judge patently unfamiliar with defamation law escaped few of the lawyers present." He found it "somewhat troubling" that the judge should take a few weeks to write his judgment in a "simple case" with all the precedents in Mr Jeyaretnam's favour.

The general view of lawyers present, he added, was that the judge should have been able to deliver his verdict immediately or within a few hours.

Some lawyers, he said, were concerned that judgment was reserved "for reasons other than to deliberate on the law of defamation and the evidence, but others saw they delay as quite normal".

It was "barely believable" that a 142-page judgment was needed in such a case, he said, adding that "it was a simple case hardly justifying such an extraordinary excursion".

Turning to the contents of the judgment, he noted that the judge had pledged to decide the issues in the case in line with established legal principles, and without fear or favour.

However, despite rejecting the case made by Mr Shields, the judge proceeded to formulate a lesser defamatory meaning of the offending words cited by the WP chief. This, said Mr Littlemore, was "doing the plaintiff's work for him".

The judge, he noted, had rejected the plaintiff's case that Mr Jeyaretnam had implied that the PM was guilty of committing criminal conspiracy and criminal defamation against Mr Tang.

But he ruled that Mr Jeyaretnam's words were defamatory because they would convey the lesser meaning that Mr Goh, who had called Mr Tang an anti-Christian Chinese chauvinist, could be investigated for doing something wrong.

The judge's action appeared to be unprecedented and was a denial of natural justice for Mr Jeyaretnam, said Mr Littlemore.

"The finding that the words were defamatory -- but not as pleaded by the plaintiff -- is equally of concern. For the judge to formulate a 'lesser meaning' in a court system that is strict in its pleadings seems at best unfortunate, in that natural justice is denied to a defendant."

This was because the defendant had no opportunity to plead justification to the imputation formulated by the court, he added.