Storm over a tea cup: Singapore v Littlemore

IT is literally a storm over a tea cup, at least in part. Was the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Goh Chok Tong, served tea while in the witness box undergoing a tough examination by a London QC in a libel case, or was he merely given a sip of "warm water" like any other witness in the sticky island republic?

Over such points of detail, Singaporean authorities are trying to unravel last week's damning report by Sydney barrister and television media commentator Stuart Littlemore on Singapore's most politically sensitive court case.

Mr Littlemore was sent to Singapore by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists to report on the libel action by Mr Goh against veteran opposition politician Mr J. B. Jeyaretnam.

Singapore says there was no tea, no milk, no sugar, just hot water. Mr Littlemore insists it looked like tea.

"There was a teapot, and a teacup, on a tea-tray," he said. "Tiffin, I believe they call it there. And served by a uniformed flunky in the middle of [George] Carman QC's cross-examination."

"... I did say it was probably an overly officious act on the part of the court attendant, but they've left that out. It was just a little bit of colour which the old journalist in me could not resist including."

Such are some of the opening shots in a legal battle royal opened up by Mr Littlemore's stinging observations, which seems set to consume many hours of legal expertise and countless newspaper columns of rebuttal.

The opponents are well matched. If anyone had to find an Australian fitting the Confucian prescription of the junzi or "righteous man" needed to adjudicate over society, Mr Littlemore, Sydney QC and magisterial rebuker of reportorial mistakes on the ABC's Media Watch program, would qualify.

By a throw of the fortune cookies, it is our own mandarin Mr Littlemore who has been put forward to tackle those most prominent modern disciples of the Chinese sage, Singapore's ruling People's Action Party (PAP).

We may even see Mr Littlemore in the dock: Singapore's Attorney-General's Department says it is considering charging him with contempt of court for suggesting the Singapore High Court helped the PAP silence its political opponents by awarding excessive libel damages against them. Some legal analysts in Singapore think this may be a prelude to formal contempt charges. Singaporean authorities are not known to shrink from legal action, even in minutiae, and may feel they have an obligation to prosecute.

On the record of the PAP's unbroken 38 years in power, Mr Littlemore can be sure of two things: the Government will not give up the argument, no matter how pedantic it becomes, and it will not shrink from using the full weight of the legal and political system to crush a critic.

As a senior PAP minister told a visiting American newspaper executive some years back: "You have to understand. There is one main law here: We win. If necessary, all other laws will be changed to make sure of that."

The changes include the removal of the right of appeal to the Privy Council in London in civil cases in 1990, after it upheld an appeal by the Mr Jeyaretnam against his disbarment by the Law Society of Singapore.

Another was the restriction of habeas corpus rights after young social activists arrested in the notorious 1987 "Marxist conspiracy" case - and forced into ritual TV confessions after days of non-stop psychological pressure - successfully appealed against their detention by the Internal Security Department.

The PAP leaders are especially protective of their judiciary against accusations that it is compliant and bought-off (Singapore judges have what are believed to be the highest salaries in the world: the chief justice earns more than the chief justices of England, the US, Canada and Australia combined. The government says this is to attract the best talent).

Mr Littlemore and the ICJ have, in fact, interceded in one of the longest-running feuds in Singapore politics: the attempt by former prime minister (now Senior Minister) Lee Kuan Yew and his successor Mr Goh Chok Tong to destroy Mr Jeyaretnam, who is perhaps the world's most persistent political loser.

A lanky Tamil with mutton-chop whiskers, Mr Jeyaretnam, 71, seems to epitomise all the Indian-style argumentative disorder that Mr Lee fears will break out if the PAP relaxes its discipline.

The trial Mr Littlemore observed - the latest of many involving Mr Jeyaretnam - was an action brought by Mr Goh against Mr Jeyaretnam for a remark during the January election campaign that a Workers' Party colleague, Mr Tang Liang Hong, had shown him two reports filed with police about Mr Goh and colleagues.

Mr Jeyaretnam did not mention the contents of those report - it was the government-controlled Straits Times newspaper which published them at the government's own instigation - but the judge found this implied Mr Goh had done "something wrong" and awarded $S10,000 ($A9,090) in damages plus 60 per cent of costs.

Mr Goh is appealing for higher damages, and 10 other PAP politicians are lined up to collect similar amounts in parallel actions.

Mr Tang, who fled Singapore after a narrow loss in the elections, has already had damages totalling nearly $S8 million against him in libel actions brought by Mr Lee, Mr Goh and other PAP politicians. He has appealed.

In his barrister's chambers in Sydney's Phillip Street, Mr Littlemore perks up at the idea of going to Singapore for a legal fight.

"I'd be tempted to," he said. "The difficulty would be a financial one. If I got adequate assistance on that, I would be happy to."

He points out that he has not imputed any motives to the Singaporean judiciary. He had pointed out that PAP plaintiffs had won an average $S570,000 in their libel actions over the past 39 years. Non-PAP plaintiffs including professionals and companies accused of fraud, dishonesty, incompetence and the like had won only $S45,000 on average.

But Mr Littlemore said "the case does nothing to disabuse the rest of the world of the belief that the High Court in Singapore is infinitely compliant in areas of political sensitivity".

Published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Oct 15, 1997