M Ravi Has to Pay $6,000 in Costs After Failing in His Application to Declare Tharman Unfit for Presidency

Singapore’s Presidential Election 2023 (PE2023) might have ended, but international human rights lawyer M Ravi’s pursuit to undermine now-President Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s credibility is far from its end.

The lawyer now has to pay $6,000 in costs after failing in his initial application to declare Tharman unfit for the presidency. Yet, he presses on—Ravi Madasamy, better known as M Ravi, might be mounting a constitutional challenge.

We don’t think the government meant this when they urged Singaporeans to be more perseverant.

M Ravi Filed Application to Declare Tharman Unfit for Presidency

ICYMI, Goody Feed’s here to catch you up.

While most of us were busy shopping for ong lyes for Tharman, M Ravi was busy trying to remove the ong lye candidate from PE2023.

On Tuesday (29 August), the lawyer announced that he had filed an application with the Supreme Court to remove our now-President Tharman from PE2023 and to revoke Tharman’s Certificate of Eligibility.

M Ravi’s grounds for doing so? That Tharman had breached the Constitution.

Yes, you read that right. M Ravi claimed that Singapore’s most popular president in history had breached the Constitution.

And you can bet that the lawyer had evidence to back him up.

As it turns out, Tharman was convicted in 1994 under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for negligibly disclosing classified government data.

And under Article 19 of the Constitution, you can’t stand for the presidential elections if you have a criminal conviction.

Further, under Article 45(1)(e) of the Constitution, one can’t even contest the General Elections or be a Member of Parliament (MP) if one has been criminally convicted. Of course, this article is subject to other conditions, but that’s the gist of M Ravi’s claim.

One last thing M Ravi has to back up his application is this: Tharman did not renounce his international appointments—this breaches Article 27 of the Constitution.

The lawyer appears to be referring to Tharman’s appointment at the World Economic Forum.

At least got do homework lah.

M Ravi Ordered to Pay $6,000 in Costs for Being a “Vexatious Litigator” & For “Wasting the Court’s Time”

Fast forward to Thursday (31 August), the lawyer attended a hearing pursuant to his application to remove Tharman from the presidential race.

Suffice it to say, the Court didn’t really “hear” him out.

Instead, M Ravi claimed that the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) had called him a “vexatious litigant”.

Ah, lawyers and their big words. Essentially, AGC allegedly said that M Ravi jiak pa bo sai pang—filing the application merely to guai lan Tharman.

And sure enough, the Court held a similar view.

The lawyer’s application was overruled, with the Court adding that the lawyer was “wasting the Court’s time” with such an application.

How now, brown cow?

Pay $6,000 in costs lor, according to M Ravi. The lawyer even made a tongue-in-cheek remark about how he was “literally fined” for his application.

What can we say except that Singapore truly is a fine city.

M Ravi Filed Appeal; Court of Appeal Rejected Filing of Appeal

But if you know anything about M Ravi, he isn’t about to give up yet. He’s what Asian mothers would call “a cockroach that never dies”.

The same evening, the night before polling day, the 54-year-old filed an appeal in a second bid to remove Tharman from PE2023.

The next day, he received news that the Court of Appeal rejected the Notice of Appeal filed by his human rights lawyer, Mr Joseph Chen.

The grounds for rejection? Aside from all that jazz about M Ravi being a “vexatious litigant”, the Court also opined that M Ravi hasn’t gone through the proper channels—the lawyer was supposed to get permission from AGC before initiating judicial review proceedings.

M Ravi Evaluating Feasibility of Mounting Constitutional Challenge

Now, it appears that M Ravi will be switching strategies: launching a constitutional challenge to declare PE2023 invalid if an ineligible candidate is elected.

And Tharman, in M Ravis’ view, is definitely ineligible.

“We will review the decision of Justice Chua Lee Meng in relation to M Ravi and will evaluate the feasibility and possibility to launch a constitutional challenge on the validity of the Presidential Elections if an unsuited or ineligible presidential candidate is elected,” the Facebook post added.

Not very heng, ong, huat for Tharman.

For now, it appears that M Ravi is far from pleased with the results of PE2023.

“Congratulations to pineapple in achieving to be pineapple achar and be a side for Briyani, and in taking over Nasi Lemak,” M Ravi shares in a Facebook post.

He also reposts another Facebook post from Iris Koh, the founder of anti-vaccination activism group Healing the Divide, who assisted the lawyer in Court on Thursday (31 August).

“The results look like a perfect score card for the PAP. I find it hard to believe,” the post from Iris Koh reads.

Wah. Tough day at the office lah.

$6,500 Cash Suddenly Goes Missing from M Ravis’ Hotel Room

Regardless, this is far from the end of M Ravi’s woes.

While Singaporeans had their eyes glued to their screens in anticipation of the PE2023 results, M Ravi had his eyes glued to his screen in anticipation of the police picking up his call instead.

On Friday (1 September) night, $6,500 worth of cash had suddenly gone missing from the 54-year-old’s room at the AM hotel.

Can it get any worse than this?

Spoiler alert: Yes, it can. The lawyer’s bag and wallet were also missing from his hotel room.

We could be wrong here, but eyes are bound to be on you when your name’s everywhere on the news for all sorts of controversial matters, including earning yourself a five-year suspension from practising law in Singapore and slapping a man.

Even when you’re at a hotel.

M Ravi said the police had initially refused to respond to his calls. In the lawyer’s words, “[t]hey have refused to come”.

However, it appears that the police eventually arrived at the hotel to assist M Ravi regardless.

The lawyer has since left the hotel.

For now, we’ll have to wait and see if M Ravi will be filing the constitutional challenge mooted by his lawyer.