S'pore PM Goh accused of using courts for politics
S'pore PM Goh accused of using courts for politics
SINGAPORE (Reuter): A top British lawyer accused Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday of using the courts as a tool to get an opposition leader out of parliament.
Cross-examining Goh on the second day of a defamation case against Workers' Party (WP) leader Joshua Jeyaretnam, libel lawyer George Carman suggested to a packed High Court that the action was designed to bankrupt Jeyaretnam.
Bankrupts are barred from being members of parliament.
"One way of making a member of parliament bankrupt... is to use the heavy artillery of multiple actions to obtain massive damages," he said. "Is that part of your strategy?"
When Goh said it was not, Carman said "you and your 10 political colleagues saw this as a method of causing financial oppression on this 71-year-old man because you wanted him out of parliament and thought the court would provide a convenient method".
"No. Mr Jeyaretnam is not a threat to the PAP," responded Goh in reference to his ruling People's Action Party (PAP), which has run Singapore since it became self-governing in 1959.
Goh, his predecessor, Lee Kuan Yew, and nine other PAP leaders accused Jeyaretnam of defaming them at the last rally before January 2 elections in which the PAP won 81 of 83 seats.
Jeyaretnam told the rally a fellow WP candidate had filed police reports against the PAP leaders accusing them of lying.
The trial is being monitored by human rights groups like the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists and Amnesty International, which says it is concerned at reports Singapore has used defamation suits to limit free speech.
The PAP leadership denies using the courts to silence the opposition. It is a question, Goh has said, of challenging allegations that would undermine his ability to govern.
The case against Jeyaretnam is the second this year against a WP member. As in the first, the allegations stem from an election campaign in which the PAP turned all its weapons on Tang Liang Hong.
They accused Tang of being "an anti-Christian, Chinese chauvinist" who endangered racial harmony in predominantly ethnic Chinese Singapore, which has substantial minorities of Malays and Indians.
Goh and his colleagues sued Tang over a variety of comments, including the lying charge. Tang fled Singapore saying his life had been threatened and did not return to defend himself.
The cases were awarded to the PAP leaders. They won a record S$8.08 million (US$5.65 million) in damages and then sued Jeyaretnam, accusing him of endorsing Tang's charge of lying.
"Mr Tang Liang Hong has just placed before me two reports he has made to police against, you know, Mr Goh Chok Tong and his people," Jeyaretnam told the election rally.
Goh's counsel Tom Shields said that comment amounted to an endorsement of Tang's charges, which had been widely publicized.