26 September 2002
Singapore Authorities Use Libel Laws to Silence Critics
Eric Ellis, Singapore
THE international media's all-too-frequent
legal jousts with Singapore's politicians have reached a new level of surrender
with the recent $550,000 settlement by the US business news wire Bloomberg.
The fast-expanding service last month settled a defamation action with
Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Lee's
eldest son, Deputy Prime Minister and PM-designate Lee Hsien Loong, without the
matter even getting to court.
The three leaders alleged libel in an article, written by a US-based Bloomberg
contributor, that described as nepotism the appointment of Lee's
daughter-in-law, Ho Ching, as executive director of Temasek Holdings, the
Government-owned investment company that controls Singapore Telecommunications,
Singapore Airlines and other assets.
While a succession of foreign publishers have been sued by Lee, his colleagues
and family for defamation over the years, none are believed to have settled so
quickly. From publication to settlement, the matter was over in three weeks.
Bloomberg's swift capitulation seems mindful of the legal record of Singapore's
leaders. Foreign publishers have spent millions in fruitless attempts to defend
libel actions brought against titles that have earned an international
reputation for accuracy and credibility.
But Bloomberg's settlement was different at several levels; its speed, that it
didn't make it to court; and that the person arguably most defamed, Ho - about
whom it was suggested she got her job because of family connections and not
ability - wasn't party to the action. And the article, written in the US, wasn't
printed in Singapore. It appeared on the internet, on Bloomberg's machines and
in a Malaysian newspaper. Singapore didn't sue the Malaysian paper for
publishing it.
Bloomberg's surrender seems a practical decision. The record of local leaders in
Singapore's defamation cases suggests Bloomberg believed it wouldn't have won.
Sydney barrister and writer Stuart Littlemore says Bloomberg, which didn't
return calls on the matter, is simply being a realist. "They've probably
decided that there is no way they will win so why waste the time and
money," he says.
A defamation specialist, Littlemore knows a bit about Singapore's judicial
system, specifically its libel courts. He claims to have studied every
defamation case heard in Singapore since its 1965 independence. Littlemore has
also monitored Singapore libel cases for the International Commission of Jurists
and notes that members of Singapore's People's Action Party, uninterrupted in
power since 1959, have never lost a libel action heard in Singapore. He also
says no foreign publisher has ever successfully defended a libel action in a
Singapore court when opposing a Singapore politician.
And when they win against their critics, Littlemore has calculated their average
award for damages - $S450,000 ($463,000) - is 12 times the wider Singaporean
average. Singapore's leaders argue they have a greater reputation to defend.
Singapore Opposition figure Chee Soon Juan applied for Littlemore to represent
him in a separate defamation stoush with Lee and Goh earlier this year. That
application was denied by High Court judge Lai Kew Chai, once a partner of Lee
and Lee, the legal firm founded by elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew. Lai said
Littlemore "lacks decency, lacks measure and maturity and is utterly
disrespectful". Littlemore needed to learn manners, the judge said.
Littlemore hasn't sued Lai for those remarks. But were he to say the same of
Singapore's prickly officials, history suggests he'd likely find himself a libel
defendant and, as the leadership's record also suggests, he'd soon be some
$450,000 the poorer for the exercise.
Bloomberg's offending article was excised from the internet, digitally erased
from "the mind of Man" as The New York Times columnist William Safire
put it.
For Bloomberg it was an arrival of sorts. It joins the long ranks of foreign
titles that have lost actions in Singapore's courts: the Far Eastern Economic
Review, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Time, Asiaweek and the IHT, all titles
which, like Bloomberg, have reputations for penetrating reporting and
commentary.
Where they are all vulnerable to Singapore justice is that each has an economic
interest in Singapore itself. The city-state might have a tiny population but it
is a wealthy, English-speaking one. Foreign titles print in Singapore because it
guarantees efficiency. So, if the Government chooses, as it has done, to cut
Singapore circulation, advertising and profits are threatened.
In a memo to staff after the settlement, Bloomberg's New York-based chief editor
Matthew Winkler said the welfare of Bloomberg's 180 employees in Singapore was
"at risk". He was also concerned its 3000-odd Singapore customers
"might lose the Bloomberg service".
Still, there are signs the foreign media may be losing patience with Singapore's
prickliness. The US wire Associated Press recently moved its regional
headquarters to Bangkok, following difficulties with journalist visa renewals in
Singapore.
Perhaps Bloomberg could've played it that way, too. As one journalist put it,
when one wire service pulls out of a regional financial centre, it damages its
own business. But if everyone does it, that financial centre is damaged.