The first reason is that the criminal case of the CHC leaders have not been found guilty by the court of corruption charges. Thus, there was no case of defamation when Mr Ngerng compared the CHC trial to the management of the CPF scheme. “Readers of the article on the blog would have known that the City Harvest Church case was ongoing,” Mr Ngerng’s defence said, “that the criminal charges were denied by the defendants and, while the judge had ruled that there was evidence sufficient for the case to continue (contrary to the submissions made to him), he had not determined that they were ‘guilty’.” The second reason offered by Mr Ngerng’s defence submission is that the blog article had to be read in context. “The article referred in some detail to the CPF and the concerns which arose in relation to its management,” it said. “The defendant will refer to the whole of what is said in that part of the article.” It argued that it “would have been clear to readers” that “principal concerns included the lack of transparency in relation to the manner in which the Singapore Government, MAS, GIC and/or Temasek managed the funds from CPF monies; the question of interest on the money [sic] in the CPF (including how much interest was being accrued and to whose benefit it was being paid or held); the growth of GIC and Temasek as wealth fund managers; and the retirement pension position for the citizens of Singapore. Readers would have read the whole of the article and, accordingly, would have considered the words and images complained of in the context of the whole.” The third reason, Mr Ngerng lawyer explains, why Mr Lee’s lawsuit is baseless, is because Mr Ngerng had already acceded to the various demands made by Mr Lee, before the legal suit was commenced. “On 23 May 2014, the defendant published the ‘apology and undertaking’ which the Plaintiff had demanded in the 18 May 2014 letter, on the homepage of his blog,” the defence said. “The defendant published the wording required by the plaintiff. It is to be inferred that the plaintiff required that form of words as constituting appropriate and sufficient vindication for the publication of the allegation of which he complained. The public apology by the defendant to the plaintiff was unreserved.” In other words, it was Mr Lee who had sought vindication through the demands, including the removal of the four articles from Mr Ngerng’s blog on 26 May – a week after Mr Lee’s original letter of demand – all of which Mr Ngerng acceded to. How then could there still be a case of defamation, Mr Ngerng’s defence asked.
Posted on: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 21:14:09 +0000
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