Li Shengwu contempt of court case

2017–2020 Singapore contempt of court proceedings against economist Li Shengwu Attorney-General v Li Shengwu was a contempt of court proceeding brought by Singapore's Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) against Harvard economist Li Shengwu over a private Facebook post he made in July 2017.

The case ran for three years, involved AGC service of court papers on Li in the United States, and ended in July 2020 with a High Court finding of guilt and a S$15,000 fine, which Li paid without admitting guilt.

The case, and the circumstances of how Li's private post came to public attention, remain a point of dispute between Li and the Singapore government.

Field	Detail
Court	High Court of Singapore
Appellate court	Court of Appeal (on an interlocutory service-of-papers issue)
Applicant/Plaintiff	Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC)
Respondent/Defendant	Li Shengwu, economist, Harvard University
Underlying act/statement	Private, friends-only Facebook post, 15 July 2017
Charge/Cause of action	Contempt of court (scandalising the judiciary)
Key dates	Post: 15 July 2017; AGC public statement: 17 July 2017; warning letter: 21 July 2017; leave to serve overseas granted: 22 August 2017; committal application filed: 4 August 2018; Court of Appeal dismissed service appeal: April 2019; Li withdrew from proceedings: 22 January 2020; guilty verdict: 29 July 2020; fine paid: 11 August 2020
Outcome	Guilty; fined S$15,000 (one week's jail in default); AGC awarded S$8,500 costs and S$8,070.69 in disbursements
Related proceedings	Law Society disciplinary proceedings against Lee Suet Fern (see "Related proceedings" below)

Background

On 15 July 2017, Li Shengwu — grandson of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, son of Lee Hsien Yang, and nephew of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — made a Facebook post visible only to his friends, sharing a Wall Street Journal article on the then-unfolding dispute among the Lee siblings over 38 Oxley Road. He added: "Keep in mind, of course, that the Singapore government is very litigious and has a pliant court system.

This constrains what the international media can usually report." Within hours, a screenshot of the post was published by a then-anonymous Facebook page, SMRT Feedback by The Vigilanteh, and circulated widely; it had originally been leaked by a separate, little-known blog.

On 17 July 2017, the AGC issued a statement to local media confirming it was "looking into" the post, which it said was made in response to an unnamed media query.

On 21 July 2017, the AGC sent Li a warning letter alleging he had made "false and baseless allegations" about the judiciary's independence, and demanding he "purge the contempt" by deleting the post and posting a prepared apology and undertaking.

Proceedings

Leave to serve papers overseas

On 22 August 2017, Justice Kannan Ramesh granted the AGC leave to serve committal papers on Li in the United States, where he was based. The AGC formally filed its committal application on 4 August 2018, and in October 2018 served Li with court papers in person while he was delivering a lecture at Harvard University, an episode Li described as an "ambush".

Li challenged the order permitting overseas service, arguing among other things that the AGC was improperly seeking retroactive application of the Administration of Justice (Protection) Act 2016 to his case. In a 66-page judgment issued in April 2019, the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal, finding that service had been properly effected under section 7(1) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act and describing the case as sui generis.

The Court's ruling meant the AGC would still have to prove, per the test set out in Au Wai Pang v Attorney-General (2015), that Li's statement carried a "real risk" — not merely a "risk" — of undermining public confidence in the administration of justice.

Withdrawal from proceedings

On 22 January 2020, Li announced he was withdrawing from participating in the proceedings, saying he would "not dignify the AGC's conduct" by continuing. He alleged the AGC had applied to strike out and seal parts of his own defence affidavit, preventing the public from seeing what had been removed, which he characterised as part of "a broader pattern of unusual conduct".

Trial and verdict

At a hearing on 2 July 2020, the AGC sought a S$15,000 fine (or two weeks' jail in default) after Li did not appear for court-ordered cross-examination. Senior Counsel for the AGC argued that Li's claim the post was seen by "very few people" was implausible, noting an AGC officer with no personal connection to Li had 15 mutual Facebook friends with him, and citing research on average Facebook friend counts.

On 29 July 2020, Justice Kannan Ramesh found Li guilty of contempt of court, holding that the AGC had proven the three required elements: that Li intended to publish the post, that it posed a real risk of undermining public confidence in the administration of justice, and that it did not amount to fair criticism.

The judge described the post as "controversial and inflammatory", noted the "significant public interest" in the Oxley Road dispute at the time, and drew an adverse inference from Li's refusal to disclose his Facebook friends list. He rejected the AGC's request for a two-week jail term in default, instead ordering a S$15,000 fine (one week's jail in default), plus S$8,500 in costs and S$8,070.69 in disbursements to the Attorney-General.

On 11 August 2020, Li announced he had decided to pay the fine "to buy some peace and quiet", stating explicitly that doing so was not an admission of guilt: "I do not admit guilt... I disagree that my words were illegal."

Reactions

Li repeatedly argued the case reflected poorly on the Singapore government's priorities, noting the AGC had spent three years and, per his lawyers, over 1,300 pages of court filings over what he called "three words in a private Facebook post". He also pointed out that the sitting Attorney-General, Lucien Wong, had previously been his uncle Lee Hsien Loong's personal lawyer, calling the AGC "supposed to be an apolitical agency".

He quoted a 2016 parliamentary remark by Law Minister K Shanmugam — "I cannot see how putting up a Facebook post poses a real risk of prejudicing proceedings unless you are the Prime Minister with a million followers and everybody reads what you say" — suggesting a double standard.

"Fix-up job" allegations over SMRT Feedback

In July 2021, The Online Citizen reported that Singapore police had closed a separate investigation into the SMRT Feedback by The Vigilanteh Facebook page — the same page that had first made Li's private post go viral in 2017 — over an unrelated allegedly seditious post, without naming the page's administrators or issuing any warning.

The report noted that SMRT Feedback's associated news website, Observer Plus, had previously been separately promoted by state-funded broadcaster CNA, and questioned whether the anonymity extended to the page's operators pointed to some affiliation with the authorities.

It suggested that, if SMRT Feedback's 2017 amplification of Li's post had prompted the media query the AGC cited as its reason for investigating Li, the case could be characterised as a "fix-up job" — though this remains speculative, and the identity of the page's administrators has never been established.

Related proceedings

Li's mother, lawyer Lee Suet Fern, was separately referred by the AGC to the Law Society over her handling of Lee Kuan Yew's final will. A Disciplinary Tribunal found her liable for professional misconduct in February 2020, and her case was referred to the Court of Three Judges, Singapore's apex body for lawyer discipline; she was ultimately suspended from legal practice for 15 months.

See also

• Li Shengwu
• 38 Oxley Road
• Lee Suet Fern
• Lee Hsien Yang