The hearing on the assessment of damages that blogger Roy Ngerng has to pay to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — after he was found guilty of defaming the Prime Minister — began today (July 1), in front of a packed courtroom with queues forming outside the courtroom hours before the session started.
However, there were few fireworks during the six-hour hearing, with the judge repeatedly interjecting Mr Ngerng’s cross-examination of Mr Lee as a witness and bringing him back on track, despite giving the blogger — who was representing himself in court — more leeway in his questioning.
On several occasions, Mr Ngerng tried to argue that his blog posts have no malicious intent, despite the fact that he was already found guilty of defamation. This prompted Mr Lee to remark that “we are not here to play games”, while his lawyer Davinder Singh objected to Ngerng’s comments and questions as being irrelevant.
Both sides also crossed swords on whether there was malice in Mr Ngerng’s conduct, whether he was sincere in his apologies and whether his subsequent actions aggravated the injury to Mr Lee’s reputation.
While Mr Ngerng started his cross-examination by apologising to Mr Lee at least three times, and pointing out that he had posted an apology on his blog for 405 days as of yesterday, his other actions suggested there was no remorse, Mr Lee pointed out. For instance, he posted a YouTube video repeating defamatory allegations against Mr Lee after he was served a letter of demand to remove the offending blog posting, and later set the access to the clip to private instead of removing it.
That was not the end of it, added Mr Lee, who noted that Ngerng also went on to email the media on how to access offending posts on another website, among other things.
“The issue is your motive and your purpose, having committed to take down the video, having committed not to repeat the libel, you have gone instead to make maximum effort to distribute as widely as you can to all editors in Singapore and overseas, and tell them where they can find it after you have taken it down,” said Mr Lee, who had offered not to claim aggravated damages if Ngerng removed the clip.
Mr Ngerng argued that he meant no malice, adding that since Mr Lee had not met him before yesterday’s hearing, he had no basis to come to that conclusion. “If need be, you can put me on a lie detector and I can prove to you that there is no malice on my part,” he told Justice Lee Seiu Kin.
He also questioned why Mr Lee had decided on suing instead of trying other means of recourse. To which, Mr Lee said he consulted his lawyers and saw the need to defend himself in this instance, after having observed Mr Ngerng’s blog for some time, which had previous postings on the Central Provident Fund (CPF) system.
“You have been skirting closer and closer to defaming me for a long period, I have been watching this. I have not responded … eventually it was unambiguous (and) I decided that I have no choice but to act,” added Mr Lee.
When Mr Ngerng sought to show that parts of his article contained factual statements, even pressing Mr Lee on issues pertaining to the workings of the CPF, Mr Singh objected, calling it a “thinly-disguised attempt to try to introduce issues not relevant to this hearing”.
Both Mr Lee and his lawyer also pointed out that Mr Ngerng was straying into challenging the issue of defamation that had already been settled by the court. Mr Lee added: “We are not here to play games, the meaning of these offending words have already been settled … there is no point going through again other than to aggravate damages”.
On Mr Ngerng’s question of why his initial offer of S$5,000 in damages was rejected even though it was an amount higher than his monthly salary then as a healthcare worker at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Mr Lee responded that it was “not a sincere offer” because Mr Ngerng had aggravated the matter through his conduct.
“He was not serious or worried of how much he was earning … He wanted to make as big a dent in my reputation as he could,” added Mr Lee.
The hearing continues tomorrow (July 2), with Mr Singh expected to cross-examine Mr Ngerng.
Source: www.todayonline.com
