The Singapore Attorney General’s office is demanding that ailing political opposition leader Kenneth Jeyaretnam delete and apologize for a May 25, 2024 Facebook post that allegedly “impugns the integrity, propriety and impartiality of the Singapore judiciary by, amongst others, insinuating that the Singapore judiciary decides cases otherwise than in accordance with their merits” and to deliver the signed apology and undertaking to the attorney-general’s office.

Jeyaretnam, the 66-year-old leader of the opposition Reform Party, has been in London for months, recuperating from a serious illness. He is also required to delete all repetitions and re-posts, remove it from all social / online media, electronic documents and paper documents in his “possession, custody or control (including any third-party websites that have received [his] endorsement to publish the …post, and post the signed Apology and Undertaking on his Facebook page and ensure that the post remains undeleted for at least a month.

In the original post, Jeyaretnam cited a UK defamation case lost by UK minister Jonathan Aitken and contrasted it with a local case won by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, plus references to local cases won by Ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan, then, according to the AG, “falsely stated that the Minister for Law (i.e., Minister K Shanmugam) may have some input, along with the [Prime Minister], into the appointment and promotion of High Court judges and into the size of their performance bonuses.. The post, the AG alleges, “implies that the Singapore judiciary would decide the claims of the Minister for Law or the Prime Minister otherwise than on their merits, and that the judiciary would be influenced in their decisions by their personal appointment, promotion or bonus.

Jeyaretnam also wrote that Singapore’s “repressive and archaic defamation laws only serve to protect those in positions of power from being held accountable.” The claim implies that the Singapore judiciary, who interpret and apply the defamation laws, would not decide matters involving those in positions of power, such as Ministers, on their merits, and that the judiciary would seek to protect them.” Hence, the Post insinuates that the Singapore judiciary decides cases otherwise than on their merits and that they prioritize other considerations such as their appointment, promotion, or bonus. This is a scandalous attack on the Singapore judiciary which clearly impugns the integrity, propriety and impartiality of the judiciary.

It worth noting factually that no Singapore official or government office has lost a defamation case, nor has a contempt of case been ruled unsuccessful, since January of 1984, when then-Senior District Judge Michael Khoo acquitted Kenneth Jeyaretnam’s father, the late JB Jeyaretnam, then Singapore's lone opposition member of parliament and mortal enemy of then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, of making a false declaration about the accounts of his Workers' Party. Shortly after that, Khoo lost his job as senior judge and was unceremoniously moved to the attorney-general's chambers, widely considered to be a much lower posting.

The Jeyaretnam episode is the last time on record that a high-profile case ever went against any members of Singapore's ruling Lee family or the government. Defamation cases have been filed against most of the western media including the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, CBS News, the Financial Times, and many others. Shanmugam and Balakrishnan several weeks ago filed for defamation against Bloomberg after the New York-based global financial service refused to apologize under the POFMA regulation after an article on land dealing between the two. Asia Sentinel has operated under a POFMA block since May 23, 2023, after refusing to post a correction on a story the editors deemed to need no correction. The Online Citizen, formerly a local publication, moved to Taiwan after refusing to knuckle under government demands for corrections.

Jeyaretnam, in a telephone interview from London, said the charge violates due process and that the government is using an antiquated law of scandalizing the judiciary against him that all commonwealth countries except Singapore have dropped.

Jeyaretnam, a former hedge fund manager who turned to politics in 2011 to take over the Reform Party founded by his father, in 2008, has been a consistent thorn in the government side, having been ordered to put up at least eight correction notices under Singapore’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), or fake news law for false statements. Last July he was told he was in danger of being labeled an “absconder” from justice under the fake news law and could be subject to penalties that could disqualify him from standing in last November’s election, which he bypassed because of his illness.

In April of 2024, he issued a statement saying he would be unable to stand in GE 2025 after having filed the necessary paperwork, but that he had to follow the advice of doctors over health issues and wouldn’t be able to make it this time. “I am not retiring though, far from it, and hope to be able to stand again sooner rather than later,” he said.

He has continued to fire away regularly from his Facebook page on issues he deemed important, although the government suspended his website The Ricebowl Singapore (TRS), and his accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn were earmarked as Declared Online Locations (DOLs) under Singapore’s fake news law, preventing him from benefiting financially on these platforms. Each online site must carry a notice stating that it is a DOL so that visitors “will be warned that Mr Jeyaretnam has a history of communicating falsehoods on these online locations,” the Ministry of Communications and Information said in a prepared release.

Asia Sentinel

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