Everything About the Defamation Lawsuit Between PM Lee & A TOC Writer Based in M’sia

In yet another defamation lawsuit involving Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (PM), a Malaysian writer from The Online Citizen (TOC) has been sued over an article she wrote about the 38 Oxley Road Saga.

Well, you know how the saying goes: learn from those who came before us. 

While this writer may have failed in doing that before writing the article, perhaps she still has a chance to put this saying into action.

After all, looking at others who have similarly been sued for defamation, I suppose crowdfunding is always an option.

What Happened?

On 15 August 2019, TOC’s chief editor Terry Xu, sent Ms Rubaashini Shunmuganathan the link to an article that Madam Ho Ching, the wife of PM Lee, had earlier shared.

The article that Mdm Ho had earlier shared was titled: “Here is why sometimes it is okay to cut ties with toxic family members”.

Sending the link through workplace messaging application Slack, Mr Xu had told Ms Rubaashini that he needed “some creative writing” and provided her with a list of points.

Ms Rubaashini then sent him a draft about four hours later. Within nine minutes, Mr Xu had approved of the article, telling her “Very good! No edits needed”. The article was then published on the TOC website.

The article was titled: “PM Lee’s wife Ho Ching weirdly shares article on cutting ties with family members”. In the article, Ms Rubaashini wrote about the 38 Oxley Road Saga, concerning a dispute PM Lee and his two siblings—Dr Lee Wei Ling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang—had over their family home after their father’s death in 2015.

Originally, the article was published under the name “Kiara Xavier”. However, around a month later on 18 September 2019, the article’s author was then changed to reflect Ms Rubaashini’s name.

On 21 October 2019, PM Lee’s lawyers sent Ms Rubaashini a letter through email, Facebook Messenger, and LinkedIn, asking her to “immediately take steps to remove the article”. They also asked her to publish an apology and compensate PM Lee for damages.

Looking at the number of platforms they tried to reach her on, all I can say is: A for effort, guys. 

However, Ms Rubaashini failed to respond to their requests. In November 2019, PM Lee then sued Ms Rubaashini for defamation. On 5 November 2019, PM Lee filed a Writ of Summons, which is used to commence civil proceedings.

According to TODAYonline, when she did not respond, Ms Rubaashini was personally served several documents up till 22 January this year.

On 4 December 2019, the Writ of Summons, the Statement of Claim, and an order of court granting PM Lee leave to serve the documents outside Singapore jurisdiction was served on Ms Rubaashini personally by a process server from a Malaysian law firm.

Ms Rubaashini was also sent the documents through her two email addresses.

When she failed to turn up for the lawsuit, PM Lee obtained a judgement in fault of appearance on 31 December 2019.

This means that Ms Rubaashini was found liable for damages since she did not respond within the stipulated time after being served with a writ of summons. She was then deemed to have admitted to all the allegations brought against her.

On 31 May this year, PM Lee’s personal lawyer, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, told the court that Ms Rubaashini had personally received the documents at her Selangor address, and that she had admitted to being Ms Rubaashini.

However, a man who is allegedly her brother claimed that she no longer lived at that address since early this year.

False Allegations Within Article 

In her article, Ms Rubaashini repeated allegations by PM Lee’s sister, Dr Lee Wei Ling, that the PM Lee had “misled” their father into thinking that the the Oxley Road property had been gazetted by the Singapore Government. Dr Lee had claimed that this caused the late Lee Kuan Yew to change his will to bestow the house to PM Lee.

Another allegation by PM Lee’s siblings that Ms Rubaashini cited in the article was that PM Lee wanted to keep the house “to inherit [Lee Kuan Yew’s] credibility”.

PM Lee pointed out in his affidavit that Ms Rubaashini did not attempt to verify the truth of the allegations in her article.

“She wrote the article in a matter of hours, not caring whether the allegations in the offending words were true or false,” said PM Lee. He added that “These matters show that the defendant was completely reckless and malicious.”

TOC’s Chief Editor Also Sued by PM Lee

PM Lee has also filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr Xu over the article. He is also seeking damages for this lawsuit, including aggravated damages, an injunction to restrain Mr Xu from publishing or disseminating the allegations, as well as costs.

Mr Xu’s case went to trial in the High Court late last year. On 15 February this year, lawyers for PM Lee and Mr Xu gave their closing arguments for the trial.

PM Lee’s lawyers said that Mr Xu had exhibited malice and aggravating conduct that was worse than previous cases of defamation that prime ministers have been involved in.

However, it is still undecided if Mr Xu is liable for damages, as High Court judge Audrey Lim had reserved her judgement after the two hours of hearing.

The Court Hearing 

On Monday (31 May), a hearing was held in the High Court to determine the amount of damages that Ms Rubaashini has to pay.

Ms Rubaashini once again ailed to show up for the hearing over Zoom.

At this point, I can’t tell if this is supposed to be an ostrich-hiding-its-head-in-the-ground situation or if she’s just fearless.

PM Lee appeared in court through Zoom for around five minutes, confirming that he had filed two affidavits of evidence-in-chief earlier this year, which presented his case against Ms Rubaashini.

In the affidavit filed earlier in January this year, PM Lee noted that the TOC article published “contained sensational allegations against me… which were likely to attract a great deal of attention and go viral on the Internet and on social networking sites”.

He supported this by saying that a “very significant number of persons” had viewed the article. According to TODAYonline, the article was read about 114,000 times within three months of its publication. The post on TOC’s Facebook page that shared the link to the article had been viewed by around 40,000 people within the same period.

However, High Court judge Audrey Lim did not deliver her judgement. This was because Senior Counsel Singh asked for three more weeks to file the written closing submissions.

He has been ordered by Justice Lim to file his closing submissions by 21 June, as well as send a copy to Ms Rubaashini through email on top of leaving one at her earlier address.

Feature Image: Asatur Yesayants / Shutterstock.com