Lee Hsien Loong v Roy Ngerng Yi Ling

2014–2015 Singapore defamation suit over a CPF blog post Lee Hsien Loong v Roy Ngerng Yi Ling was a defamation suit brought by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong against blogger Roy Ngerng over a May 2014 blog post that compared the Government's handling of Central Provident Fund (CPF) monies to the City Harvest Church criminal misappropriation trial. The High Court found the post defamatory and granted interlocutory judgment with a permanent injunction in November 2014, then assessed damages at S$150,000 (S$100,000 general, S$50,000 aggravated) in December 2015.

Field	Detail
Court	High Court of Singapore
Applicant/Plaintiff	Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and Chairman of GIC Private Limited
Respondent/Defendant	Roy Ngerng Yi Ling, blogger, author of "The Heart Truths to Keep Singaporeans Thinking"
Underlying act/statement	Blog post "Where Your CPF Money Is Going: Learning From The City Harvest Trial", published on Ngerng's blog and shared on Facebook, on or about 15 May 2014
Charge/Cause of action	Defamation (common law, as modified by the Defamation Act); sole pleaded defence was that the law of defamation was unconstitutional under Article 14 of the Constitution
Key dates	Article published: 15 May 2014; letter of demand: 18 May 2014; writ filed: 29 May 2014; summary judgment/meaning application heard: 18 September 2014; judgment on liability and injunction ([2014] SGHC 230): 7 November 2014; damages assessment heard; judgment on damages ([2015] SGHC 320): 17 December 2015
Citation	[2014] SGHC 230 (liability and injunction); [2015] SGHC 320 (assessment of damages)
Outcome	Interlocutory judgment for the plaintiff; permanent injunction restraining republication of the allegation; damages of S$150,000 (S$100,000 general, S$50,000 aggravated), plus costs
Related proceedings	Jeyaretnam Joshua Benjamin v Lee Kuan Yew [1990] and [1992]; Review Publishing Co Ltd v Lee Hsien Loong [2010] 1 SLR 52 (cited as binding authority on the Article 14 defence)

Background

On or about 15 May 2014, Roy Ngerng, the owner and writer of the blog "The Heart Truths to Keep Singaporeans Thinking", published an article titled "Where Your CPF Money Is Going: Learning From The City Harvest Trial". The article juxtaposed contemporaneous news coverage of the ongoing criminal trial of City Harvest Church founder Kong Hee and five co-defendants over alleged misuse of church building funds with a discussion of the lack of transparency in how CPF monies flowed into GIC and Temasek Holdings investments, alongside a chart purporting to show parallels between the two. Ngerng also published a link to the article on his own Facebook page and on the blog's Facebook page. On 18 May 2014, Lee Hsien Loong's solicitors issued a letter of demand requiring Ngerng to remove the article and related links, publish a prescribed apology and undertaking, compensate Lee by way of damages, and indemnify his costs. On 23 May 2014, Ngerng published a statement on his blog and, through his own solicitors, wrote to Lee's solicitors acknowledging that the article meant and was understood to mean that Lee "is guilty of criminal misappropriation of the monies paid by Singaporeans to the Central Provident Fund", that the allegation was "false and completely without foundation", and that it had caused Lee "distress and embarrassment". On 27 May 2014, Ngerng's solicitors offered S$5,000 in damages, which Lee did not accept. Lee filed the writ commencing Suit No 569 of 2014 on 29 May 2014.

Proceedings

Summary judgment and injunction ([2014] SGHC 230)

Lee applied under Summons No 3403 of 2014 for the court to determine the natural and ordinary meaning of the disputed words and images under Order 14 Rule 12 of the Rules of Court, and for summary judgment under Order 14 Rule 1 on the basis that Ngerng had no defence. Ngerng's sole pleaded defence was that the common law of defamation was unconstitutional, on the theory that Article 14(1)(a) of the Constitution guarantees an unrestricted right to free speech unless Parliament specifically legislates a restriction, and that Parliament had never done so for defamation. Justice Lee Seiu Kin held this argument was foreclosed by binding Court of Appeal authority — Jeyaretnam Joshua Benjamin v Lee Kuan Yew [1990] 1 SLR(R) 337 and [1992] 1 SLR(R) 791, and Review Publishing Co Ltd v Lee Hsien Loong [2010] 1 SLR 52 — all of which had held that the constitutional right to free speech under Article 14 is, and always has been, subject to the common law of defamation as continued in force via Article 162 (formerly Article 105(1) of the 1963 State Constitution). The court accordingly found there was no triable defence. On meaning, the court held that the article, read as a whole, conveyed to the ordinary reasonable reader that Lee — as Prime Minister and Chairman of GIC — was guilty of criminal misappropriation of CPF monies, rejecting Ngerng's argument that the rest of the article (discussing the Government's legal enrichment from CPF investment gains) served as an "antidote" that put the City Harvest comparison in a non-defamatory light. The court noted the test for meaning was objective, and that Ngerng's stated intention not to make such an accusation was accordingly irrelevant. On the question of an injunction, the court distinguished between interim and final injunctions, and held a final injunction requires evidence the defendant is likely to repeat the defamatory allegation. Reviewing a sequence of events after the letter of demand — including Ngerng republishing links to the City Harvest/CPF comparison, asserting in a video that his allegation was "the truth" and that he did not "regret" making it, and privately directing media contacts to a mirror of the removed content after undertaking to take it down — the court found Ngerng had "manifested a propensity to repeat the defamatory allegation" and granted a final injunction restraining him from publishing the allegation "or any words and/or images to the same effect", declining Lee's broader request to extend the injunction to "any allegation to the same effect, by any means whatsoever" as unduly wide. The court granted interlocutory judgment for Lee with damages to be assessed.

Assessment of damages ([2015] SGHC 320)

At the assessment of damages hearing, Ngerng appeared in person, without counsel. Lee's counsel, Davinder Singh SC, did not specify a figure but submitted that "a very high award of damages, including aggravated damages" was warranted, citing a series of prior defamation awards to Singapore prime ministers ranging from S$230,000 to S$260,000 in the 1980s (Lee Kuan Yew v Seow Khee Leng; Lee Kuan Yew v Derek Davies; Lee Kuan Yew v Jeyaretnam Joshua Benjamin [1990] 1 SLR(R) 709) to sums exceeding S$300,000 more recently (Lee Kuan Yew v Vinocur John (1995); Goh Chok Tong v Chee Soon Juan (2005); Lee Hsien Loong v Singapore Democratic Party (2009)). The court found Ngerng had acted with malice and that his conduct after publication was aggravating, warranting an award of aggravated as well as general damages. However, it held a "substantial reduction" from the range awarded in the cited prime-ministerial precedents was appropriate, given that — unlike those earlier defendants, who included senior opposition politicians and international publications — Ngerng was, in the court's assessment, a defendant "of modest standing". The court set damages at S$150,000, comprising S$100,000 in general damages and S$50,000 in aggravated damages, and reserved the question of costs for further submissions.

See also

• Roy Ngerng
• Central Provident Fund
• Lee Hsien Loong
• Jeyaretnam Joshua Benjamin v Lee Kuan Yew
• Review Publishing Co Ltd v Lee Hsien Loong

External links

• Lee Hsien Loong v Roy Ngerng Yi Ling [2014 SGHC 230] — full judgment, liability and injunction
• Lee Hsien Loong v Roy Ngerng Yi Ling [2015 SGHC 320] — full judgment, assessment of damages