SINGAPORE – Cabinet ministers K. Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan are seeking aggravated damages against Mr Lee Hsien Yang for defaming them in a public post on his Facebook page about their rental of state bungalows in Ridout Road.

Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan appeared in court on May 2 at a hearing to assess the amount of damages they are entitled to get from Mr Lee.

They took the stand briefly to affirm the contents of the affidavits they had filed to the court.

Mr Lee was absent.

After the 20-minute hearing ended, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, who is acting for the two ministers, told reporters that they did not specify the amount of damages sought. They were leaving it to the court, he said.

Mr Singh argued in his opening statement that Mr Lee’s conduct had aggravated the injury caused by his defamatory post.

He said Mr Lee had refused to apologise for his post after receiving a legal demand to do so, and instead “proceeded to wage a public campaign to gain sympathy and support from Singaporeans” against the two ministers.

The lawyer noted that despite making numerous Facebook posts drawing attention to the defamatory post, Mr Lee “has never once said” that his statements were true.

“That is very telling. He has also not come to court to claim that they are true. The inference is compelling that he knew and knows that the offending words are false,” he said.

Mr Singh cited Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s defamation suit against blogger and financial adviser Leong Sze Hian.

In 2021, PM Lee was awarded $100,000 in general damages and $33,000 in aggravated damages.

Mr Singh compared Mr Lee Hsien Yang’s conduct to that of Mr Leong, who was sued for sharing, on his Facebook page, an article from a Malaysian news site falsely linking PM Lee to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad corruption scandal in Malaysia.

He noted that Mr Leong removed his post after three days, but Mr Lee’s post was available for more than 3½ months.

Mr Singh said Mr Lee had “continued to double down” on the false allegations, although it was widely known that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau’s investigations found no evidence that the ministers received preferential treatment or had abused their position for personal gain.

Mr Shanmugam, who is Law and Home Affairs Minister, and Dr Balakrishnan, who is Foreign Minister, had filed separate defamation suits in the High Court against Mr Lee in August 2023.

The legal action arose over the post on Mr Lee’s Facebook page made on July 23.

Mr Lee is the younger son of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and brother of PM Lee.

On Nov 2, 2023, Justice Goh Yihan granted default judgment in favour of the two ministers after Mr Lee failed to respond to their defamation suits against him.

In his written grounds of decision, Justice Goh said the two ministers had met the requirements for a default judgment against Mr Lee.

As Mr Lee was not in Singapore, the ministers applied to the court and were given permission to serve him court papers by Facebook messenger, which they did on Sept 15, 2023.

While there was no need for the ministers to prove that Mr Lee saw the documents served on him, Justice Goh noted that Mr Lee had put up a post on Sept 16, 2023, that confirmed he had seen the papers.

Mr Lee then had 21 days to respond to the claims, but did not do so.

The judge had also granted an injunction restraining Mr Lee from further publishing or disseminating the false and defamatory allegations, which stated, among other things, that the ministers had acted corruptly and for personal gain by receiving preferential treatment for the rentals from the Singapore Land Authority.

Justice Goh said he had granted the injunction as there were “strong reasons” for him to conclude that Mr Lee would repeat his defamatory statements.

On May 2, Mr Singh noted that Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan are “public leaders and persons of the highest integrity whose standing are beyond question”.

Mr Singh argued that the higher the claimant’s standing, the heavier the damages.

As for Mr Lee, he is a well-known figure in Singapore, with 89,000 followers on Facebook.

The greater the standing of the defamer, the greater the impact of the defamation and the degree of injury, Mr Singh said.

He also noted that as at 7.11am on April 5, 2024, Mr Lee’s post had received 2,765 reactions, 489 comments and 402 shares.

The greater the extent of publication and republication, the higher the award of damages, said Mr Singh.