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.