Breaking news: IBA says it did not send letter
that LKY testified it did
Wednesday, 02 July 2008 Singapore Democrats
In the recent defamation suit hearing to assess damages, Mr Lee
Kuan Yew testified in court that the President of the International
Bar Association (IBA) had written to the Law Society of Singapore
praising the judiciary here.
This letter was apparently written following the organisation's
annual conference held in Singapore in September last year.
The following is what Mr Lee said in court:
"Your honour, the International Bar Association decided to
honour Singapore and hold its annual conference in this city and
you [Dr Chee] were given an opportunity to present your case, with
your complaint that Singapore lack the rule of law. There were some
3000 lawyers there.
I think they left Singapore with a very different impression from
what you have projected because we have a letter from the President
of the International Bar Association to the organisers,
namely the Law Society of Singapore, how successful the meeting was
and how impressed they were by the standards they found to obtain
in the judiciary - " (see
here also)
But the IBA has confirmed to the SDP that there was no such
letter. According to the IBA its president did not write such a
letter. The Law Society of Singapore has also denied that it has
received any such letter from the IBA.
An IBA official said: "If there is another source of this letter,
we do not know about it."
Mr Lee gave this evidence in the witness box during
cross-examination by Dr Chee Soon Juan on 27 May 08.
The SDP will seek legal advice on this latest development.
In a related matter, Mr Lee's press secretary wrote to the Wall
Street Journal stating that Dr Chee had called Singapore
leaders "murderers, robbers, child molesters" and "rapists" in open
court.
Dr Chee clearly said no such thing and has written to the newspaper
challenging the Minister Mentor to produce the records showing that
he (Dr Chee) did. (See
here).
http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php/component/content/article/1-singapore/576-breaking
LKY called CSJ liar and a few other names in a defamation suit
against CSJ.
If there is a rule of law here the court will probably want to
stop LKY from such name calling in a defamation suit which main
objective is to stop anyone from defaming another without fear or
favor treating all as equal.
Now I am totally surprised that the letter praising the
Singapore judiciary for rule of law record introduced in court as
evidence to support LKY defamation charge against CSJ may itself be
faked as found by IBA.
If this is the case, that the IBA letter turns out to be faked
then will it be a retrial in the interest of justice and to uphold
Singapore reputation for rule of law as contended by LKY in
court.
