M Ravi misused court as platform for political point-scoring: Judge

SINGAPORE — A High Court judge, who had earlier dismissed Mr M Ravi’s challenge on changes to the Elected Presidency scheme, said that the non-practising lawyer had “patently and unacceptably” misused the court as a platform for “political point-scoring”.

Justice See Kee Oon added that he had “no hesitation” in dismissing Mr Ravi’s challenge, which was “unmeritorious in almost every conceivable aspect”.

“The plaintiff’s grounds of challenge were repeatedly unclear and there was no indication as to the specific relief or remedy being sought. What (he) appeared to be primarily intent on doing was to ventilate his polemical views on politics and governance in Singapore,” said the judge, who set out the grounds for his decision, announced last month, in a written judgment released on Monday (July 10).

Mr Ravi had argued that reserving the presidential elections for particular races goes against the Constitution, which states that all Singaporeans are equal before the law and entitled to equal protection of the law.

He had filed the application in May in the capacity of a private Singapore citizen.

Reiterating the court’s decision that Mr Ravi, as a private citizen, had “no standing” to mount the challenge, Justice See said he had not shown how his personal rights were violated by the changes made to the Elected Presidency scheme.

“There was really nothing in the plaintiff’s submissions which disclosed any breach of sufficient gravity to make it in the public interest for the courts to hear the case ... Adopting language used in (past) cases, (Mr Ravi) was a mere busybody and social gadfly,” said Justice See.

Mr Ravi’s applications to have the case heard in an open court, for the hearing to be postponed as he had needed more time, as well as to disqualify Deputy Attorney-General Hri Kumar Nair from conducting proceedings on behalf of the Attorney-General — on grounds that Mr Nair was in a position of conflict as a former member of the People’s Action Party — were also thrown out.

Justice See rapped Mr Ravi for his “frequent gratuitous forays into irrelevant and irreverent sidebars” and his “scathingly intemperate allegations”.

“After one or two initial reminders that he was straying into irrelevancy, I formed the view that unless intervention was absolutely necessary, such reminders would serve little purpose as they would only result in protracted protestations and further unproductive exchanges.”

In ordering Mr Ravi to pay S$6,000 in legal fees and reimburse the Attorney-General’s Chambers for costs, the judge also said that “the court should not be made to suffer” by his “abuse of process”.

Mr Ravi had filed a notice to appeal against the court’s verdict on June 22.