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PM’s libel suit against blogger not an abuse of court process, says High Court

SINGAPORE — Financial adviser and blogger Leong Sze Hian is set to stand trial for allegedly defaming Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong by sharing a Facebook article about him.

Financial adviser and blogger Leong Sze Hian's application to strike out Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's claim against him for defamation was thrown out by the High Court on Tuesday (March 12).

Financial adviser and blogger Leong Sze Hian's application to strike out Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's claim against him for defamation was thrown out by the High Court on Tuesday (March 12).

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SINGAPORE — Financial advisor and blogger Leong Sze Hian is set to stand trial for allegedly defaming Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong by sharing a Facebook article about him.

His application to strike out Mr Lee’s claim against him for defamation was thrown out by High Court Judge Aedit Abdullah on Tuesday (March 12) as the suit “discloses triable issues”.

Meanwhile, the judge approved Mr Lee’s application to strike out Mr Leong’s counterclaim, which had argued that the Prime Minister’s libel suit is an abuse of the court process.

ABOUT THE CASE

Mr Lee is claiming that it was libelous for Mr Leong to share on Facebook an article alleging that the prime minister had helped Malaysia’s former premier Najib Razak to launder money from the country’s state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The article, titled "Breaking News: Singapore Lee Hsien Loong Becomes 1MDB's Key Investigation Target — Najib Signed Several Unfair Agreements With Hsien Loong In Exchange for Money Laundering", was originally published by online site States Times Review on Nov 5 and carried on Malaysian website The Coverage on Nov 7.

Mr Leong shared The Coverage’s version on his Facebook page that same day without any accompanying caption.

Last December, Mr Leong — represented by opposition party leader and lawyer Lim Tean — filed his countersuit against Mr Lee, along with a defence that what he did by sharing the article was no more than what thousands of others had done.

Mr Lee’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, responded by making an application to strike out the counterclaim in January.

THE JUDGE’S DECISION

In striking out the counterclaim on Tuesday, Justice Aedit said the legal basis that Mr Leong based his case on “does not exist”, and cited an earlier apex court judgment, which found that the abuse of court process “is not recognised in Singapore”.

“Accordingly, as the defendant’s counterclaim discloses no recognised cause of action, let alone a reasonable one, it should be struck out,” said the judge, defining a reasonable course as one with “some chance of success when only the allegations in the pleading are considered”.

To rule in Mr Leong’s favour would be to “go against the binding authority of the Court of Appeal”, he noted, adding that it was not possible for the High Court to do so.

In contrast, the judge said Mr Lee’s claim is “not such a clearly unsustainable one”, and there is no “plain and obvious” case for striking it out.

Furthermore, Justice Aedit said Mr Leong had not managed to prove that Mr Lee’s claim of libel was “scandalous, frivolous or vexatious” — points Mr Lim had raised in his attempt to strike out the case.

But the judge accepted that Mr Leong’s case falls outside the area of “mischief”.

Mr Lim had argued too that Mr Leong’s post was online for only a short time and did not feature prominently on his Facebook timeline, and no damage would have been caused to Mr Lee’s reputation as readers would have understood the offending words to be false and defamatory.

To this point, Justice Aedit noted that Mr Lee has a “substantial reputation” as Singapore’s Prime Minister, and “such reputation may be marred even by publication of allegedly defamatory material to a small number of persons”.

The judge ruled for the costs in both applications to be awarded to Mr Lee.  

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