23 AUG
1997
A "FUNDAMENTAL error" had been made in the Tang Liang Hong
defamation case earlier this year QC George Carmen told the
Singapore High Court, Aug 21. Mr Carmen said this during his
submission in the defamation suit by prime minister Goh Chok Tong
against Workers' Party leader J. B. Jeyeratnam.
The judge in the Tang case, Justice Chao Hick Tin, had laboured
under the impression that it was Mr Jeyaretnam who released the
police reports to the press, Mr Carman said.
However, while under oath, on the second day of the trial, Mr Goh
told the High Court that it was he who authorised senior minister
Lee Kuan Yew to release Mr Tang's police reports.
Mr Carman said the prime minister and Mr Lee, his predecessor,
"shot themselves in the foot" by releasing the report over which
they are now seeking legal damages.
Mr Carman also accused Mr Goh and his predecessor for
''orchestrating a damage claim when there really hasn't been any
damage by (Mr Jeyeratnam). The real loss has been self-inflicted
and engineered. This really is standing justice on its head.'' In
his written judgment, May 29, Justice Chao said: "The police report
was released to the media through the Secretary-General of the WP
at a rally that evening..."
Mr Carman said: "That is totally and completely untrue." He
demanded that the lawyers for the PAP men explain to the court how
the judge had been so "seriously misled".
He added that nowhere in any of their court documents did the
plaintiffs mention that it was Mr Goh and Mr Lee who released the
police reports, as the Prime Minister had testified on Tuesday.
Instead, the documents were drafted carefully to suggest that it
was the press which procured the release of the reports.
From the witness box, Mr Goh said that he first read about Mr
Tang's plan to file a police report from an interview in The
Straits Times. In it, Mr Tang had said that not only was he going
to sue Mr Goh and the PAP men, but he would also file police
reports against them for defaming him by calling him an
anti-Christian Chinese chauvinist.
Mr Goh went on to describe how he had asked Home Affairs Minister
Wong Kan Seng to inform him if Mr Tang did file a police report, as
he said he would.
On the evening of Jan 1, while attending a PAP rally in Potong
Pasir, the report was presented to him about two hours after Mr
Tang filed it. A copy was also sent to Senior Minister Lee Kuan
Yew, who was attending another PAP rally in Hougang.
At about 9.15 pm, Mr Goh proceeded to the Hougang rally, where he
met Mr Lee and exchanged a few words with him about the
reports.
"We had to decide what to do with it," he said, noting that at that
point of time, Mr Tang had not made public his police
reports.
Mr Goh said he saw no need to go public with the reports to benefit
Mr Tang's chances at the polls since the WP man would have been
seen to have kept his word.
But, he added, after WP chief J. B. Jeyaretnam had made known Mr
Tang's lodging of the reports at its party's final election rally
that night, he had no choice but to bring the reports out into the
open, especially when newspaper journalists began asking for copies
of the reports. "If I had not, I would have come across as trying
to hide something."
The decision, he said, was made the next day, which was Polling
Day. Mr Lee had contacted him to discuss the reports. They spoke
for five to 10 minutes, and he authorised Mr Lee to release the
reports.
To that, Mr Carman asked: "Did Mr Lee ask 'may I release it? Or
'shall I release it?"' Mr Goh: "No, he said 'should we release it?'
I said yes."
