Defamation
suit against blogger
PM
applies for ruling without full
trial
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has made an application
for the High Court to rule in his favour in his defamation suit
against blogger Roy Ngerng, without going through a full
trial.
Lawyer M Ravi. who is representing Mr Ngerng, disclosed this in
an e-mail to the press about Mr Lee's application for a summary
judgement.
A summary judgement is a procedure where a
plaintiff claims that the defendant has no case and seeks judgement
in his favour without a trial.
'NO DEFENCE'
In the application, Mr Lee's lawyer Davinder Singh argued that
it is within the jurisdiction of the courts to rule in favour of Mr
Lee at this stage of the case since Mr Ngerng has "no defence". He
added that "the only issue to be determined is damages".
The senior counsel asked the court to issue a
provisional decision on how much damages Mr Lee should receive. He
also asked the courts to ban the continued publication or
dissemination of the offending blog posts containing the
allegations.
Mr Ngerng, 33, is being sued for defamation after
alleging that Mr Lee had criminally misappropriated CPF savings in
a May 15 blog post. He followed it up with a few other posts and
videos on the same topic.
Last month, in a defence filed in court, he said
that he never intended to accuse Mr Lee of misappropriating CPF
savings. He also argued that the key concerns raised in his May 15
blog post, which is at the centre of the suit, were the lack of
transparency with which CPF funds are managed, and the question of
interest on these saving, among other things.
News, The New Paper, Saturday, July 12 2014, Pg 4
