Case Details
- Citation: [2020] SGHC 206
- Case Title: Lee Hsien Loong v Xu Yuan Chen and another suit
- Court: High Court of the Republic of Singapore (General Division)
- Decision Date: 01 September 2021
- Judge: Audrey Lim J
- Case Numbers: Suit No 882 of 2019 and Suit No 1136 of 2019
- Parties (Plaintiff/Applicant): Lee Hsien Loong (“LHL”), Prime Minister of Singapore
- Parties (Defendants/Respondents): Xu Yuan Chen (“Xu”), Chief Editor of The Online Citizen; and Rubaashini Shunmuganathan (“RS”), writer of the Article
- Legal Area: Tort — Defamation
- Key Issues (as framed): Defamatory statements; Justification; Damages (damage to reputation; aggravated damages); Whether separate awards can be made against two defendants sued separately for the same publication
- Representation: Davinder Singh SC and Pardeep Singh Khosa (Davinder Singh Chambers LLC) for LHL in Suit 882 and Suit 1136; Lim Tean (Carson Law Chambers) for Xu in Suit 882; RS unrepresented
- Procedural Posture: RS did not enter an appearance; default judgment granted with damages to be assessed
- Length: 33 pages, 18,227 words
- Statutes Referenced: Defamation Act
- Cases Cited: [2021] SGHC 206 (as per metadata); Review Publishing Co Ltd and another v Lee Hsien Loong and another appeal [2010] 1 SLR 52; Low Tuck Kwong v Sukamto Sia [2014] 1 SLR 639; Stocker v Stocker [2019] 3 All ER 647; Goh Chok Tong v Tang Liang Hong [1997] 1 SLR(R) 811
Summary
Lee Hsien Loong v Xu Yuan Chen and another suit concerned two defamation actions brought by the Prime Minister of Singapore arising from a single online article published on The Online Citizen (“TOC”). The plaintiff, Lee Hsien Loong (“LHL”), sued the article’s editor, Xu Yuan Chen (“Xu”), and also sued the article’s writer, Rubaashini Shunmuganathan (“RS”). The court had to determine whether specific paragraphs within the article were defamatory, what meaning an ordinary reasonable reader would take from the words, and whether the defendant could rely on justification or fair comment-type reasoning.
In Suit 882, the High Court (Audrey Lim J) applied the established objective test for “natural and ordinary meaning” in defamation law. The court emphasised that the meaning is assessed from the perspective of the ordinary reasonable reader, not from the publisher’s intention or from what the plaintiff subjectively understood. The court also addressed the “repetition rule”, recognising that each publication is a separate instance of defamation. The judgment further dealt with damages principles, including the relevance of the defendants’ conduct and the relationship between awards against multiple defendants for the same publication.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
The dispute underlying the defamation claims was a family feud involving LHL and his siblings, Mr Lee Hsien Yang (“LHY”) and Ms Lee Wei Ling (“LWL”), concerning a property at 38 Oxley Road (“the House”) owned by their late father, Lee Kuan Yew (“LKY”). The siblings made allegations publicly on multiple occasions, including joint statements dated 14 June 2017 (“June Statement”) and 4 July 2017 (“July Statement”), as well as Facebook posts. The allegations included claims that LHL and his wife, Ho Ching (“Ho”), opposed LKY’s wish to demolish the House even while LKY was alive; that LHL wanted to preserve the House to strengthen his political mandate and capital; that LHL misrepresented to LKY that the House had been gazetted (or that gazetting was inevitable); and that LKY inserted a clause in his will to demolish the House, removed LHL as executor and trustee, and thereby made it harder for LHL to misuse the Cabinet to preserve the House.
LHL treated these allegations seriously. In July 2017, he brought the matter to Parliament to “air fully all the accusations” against him and issued rebuttal statements. He also explained why he did not commence legal action against the siblings. This background is important because the TOC article did not arise in a vacuum; it drew on the public narrative of the family dispute and the competing accounts of what LKY believed and what LHL did or did not do.
On 14 August 2019, Ho shared on her Facebook page an article titled “Here’s why sometimes it is okay to cut ties with toxic family members” (“Ho’s Post”). On 15 August 2019, Xu told RS that he “needed some creative writing” on Ho’s Post based on pointers Xu listed. RS replied with a draft, and Xu published the resulting article on TOC at about 12.47pm without making edits. TOC staff then shared the article on TOC’s Facebook page (“TOC Post”) the same day. The article’s content included a section describing the “Lee family feud” and summarising allegations about the House, gazetting, and LKY’s will.
LHL’s defamation claim focused on specific paragraphs within the article (referred to in the judgment as “the Paragraphs”). These paragraphs were not shown in the TOC Post; the TOC Post only shared the article’s URL and the first six paragraphs, whereas the Paragraphs appeared from the seventh paragraph onwards. On 1 September 2019, LHL (as Prime Minister) wrote to Xu through his Press Secretary demanding removal of the article and TOC Post, a full and unconditional apology, and an undertaking not to publish similar allegations. The Prime Minister’s Office issued a press release including the demand letter, and the article was removed shortly thereafter, but the TOC Post containing the article’s URL was not removed. Xu responded on 4 September 2019 with a letter asserting that the article was not defamatory and that its contents constituted fair comment, while also apologising in case the article was misinterpreted. Xu later amended the article by adding a “Qualifier” sentence and appended a paragraph stating that the PMO had issued a letter of demand and that TOC had rejected the demands but would include the letter for readers to view alongside the article.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The first key issue was whether the Paragraphs were defamatory. Defamation requires that the impugned words, in their natural and ordinary meaning, would tend to lower the plaintiff in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, or cause them to shun or avoid the plaintiff. The court therefore had to determine the meaning that an ordinary reasonable reader would take from the Paragraphs, including any inferences or implications drawn from the words in light of general knowledge and common sense.
A second issue concerned the defendant’s defences. Xu denied that the Paragraphs bore, were understood to bear, or were capable of bearing the “Claimed Meanings” pleaded by LHL. Xu also denied malice. Alternatively, Xu argued that the Paragraphs, read in context of the article, meant or were understood to mean that it was ironic for Ho to share a post about cutting ties with “toxic family members” given the publicised poor relationship between Ho/LHL and the siblings. Xu further pleaded that the Claimed Meanings were true in substance and in fact, engaging the concept of justification.
A third issue, relevant to both liability and damages, was the effect of multiple publications and multiple defendants. The judgment noted that each republication constitutes a new and separate instance of defamation (the “repetition rule”). Additionally, because LHL sued two different individuals for the same article, the court had to consider whether separate awards could be made against two defendants sued separately for the same publication, and how damages should be assessed in a way that reflects culpability without duplicating harm.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The court began with the governing principles for determining the natural and ordinary meaning of allegedly defamatory words. The test is objective: the court asks what meaning the words would convey to an ordinary reasonable person, not unduly suspicious or avid for scandal. The court does not confine itself to the literal meaning; it also considers inferences or implications that an ordinary reader might draw from the words, using general knowledge, common sense, and experience. This approach is consistent with earlier Singapore authority, including Review Publishing Co Ltd and another v Lee Hsien Loong and another appeal [2010] 1 SLR 52.
Crucially, the court held that it is irrelevant what meaning was intended by the publisher or what meaning was actually understood by the plaintiff. The defendant cannot avoid liability by arguing that he did not intend to defame. This principle was reinforced by Low Tuck Kwong v Sukamto Sia [2014] 1 SLR 639, where the court rejected intention as a substitute for the objective meaning test. The court therefore focused on the single meaning it found the Paragraphs to convey, and then assessed whether that meaning was defamatory. The court also cited the need to reach a single meaning rather than multiple competing meanings, drawing on cases such as Stocker v Stocker [2019] 3 All ER 647 and Goh Chok Tong v Tang Liang Hong [1997] 1 SLR(R) 811.
In applying these principles, the court treated the Paragraphs as the operative defamatory content. The pleaded Claimed Meanings were that LHL had misled LKY into thinking the House had been gazetted and that it was futile to keep LKY’s demolition direction (1st Claimed Meaning); that this misrepresentation caused LKY to consider alternatives and change his will to bequeath the House to LHL (2nd Claimed Meaning); and that after it was revealed in late 2013 that the House had not been gazetted, LHL was removed as executor (3rd Claimed Meaning). The court’s task was to decide whether the ordinary reasonable reader would understand the Paragraphs as conveying these allegations, or whether the context and wording supported Xu’s alternative “irony” interpretation.
The court also addressed the repetition rule. Because the article was published on TOC’s website and then shared on TOC’s Facebook page (with the URL and partial excerpts), and because Xu later made the article accessible again and amended it, the court recognised that each republication is a separate instance of defamation. This matters for both liability and damages, because the harm to reputation can be aggravated by continued availability of the defamatory material and by the defendant’s conduct after receiving notice of the complaint.
On the damages dimension, the court’s analysis (as reflected in the issues framed in the metadata) would have considered how the plaintiff’s reputation was affected, whether there were grounds for aggravated damages, and how to avoid duplicative awards where multiple defendants are sued for the same publication. The court also had to consider the practical effect of the defendant’s post-notice steps, including removal of the article, the failure to remove the TOC Post containing the URL, and the amendment adding the Qualifier and the appended PMO letter. While such steps may be relevant to mitigation or to the assessment of damages, they do not necessarily negate liability if the defamatory meaning remains.
What Was the Outcome?
The High Court rendered liability and damages determinations across two suits, issuing a single decision to address liability and damages in Suit 882 and damages in Suit 1136. The judgment proceeded first with Suit 882, where Xu contested both meaning and defences. RS, in Suit 1136, did not enter an appearance and default judgment was granted with damages to be assessed.
Practically, the outcome would have included findings on whether the Paragraphs were defamatory and whether Xu was liable, followed by an assessment of damages reflecting the nature of the allegations, the extent of publication, and any aggravating or mitigating factors. The court also had to ensure that damages were calibrated appropriately across two defendants for the same article, so that the plaintiff’s recovery reflected distinct culpability without unjust duplication.
Why Does This Case Matter?
This case is significant for defamation practitioners because it illustrates the disciplined application of the objective “natural and ordinary meaning” test in the context of online publications. The court’s emphasis that intention and actual understanding are irrelevant reinforces a core feature of Singapore defamation law: liability turns on how the words would be understood by an ordinary reasonable reader, not on the defendant’s subjective state of mind. This is particularly important for media defendants and online publishers who may argue that they “meant” something else or that readers would not interpret the words as defamatory.
Second, the case highlights how online dissemination and partial republication (such as sharing a URL with only some excerpts) can still create defamation exposure. The repetition rule means that multiple postings and continued accessibility can compound harm. For plaintiffs, this supports arguments for damages based on the persistence and reach of defamatory content. For defendants, it underscores the importance of prompt and comprehensive takedown actions after notice, not merely removing the main article while leaving residual links or excerpts accessible.
Third, the judgment addresses the practical challenge of damages where multiple defendants are sued for the same publication. The court’s approach to whether separate awards can be made against two defendants sued separately for the same publication is a useful reference point for litigators structuring claims against editors, writers, and publishers. It also informs settlement strategy and risk assessment, because damages exposure may depend not only on liability but also on how the court prevents duplicative recovery.
Legislation Referenced
- Defamation Act (Singapore)
Cases Cited
- Review Publishing Co Ltd and another v Lee Hsien Loong and another appeal [2010] 1 SLR 52
- Low Tuck Kwong v Sukamto Sia [2014] 1 SLR 639
- Stocker v Stocker [2019] 3 All ER 647
- Goh Chok Tong v Tang Liang Hong [1997] 1 SLR(R) 811
Source Documents
This article analyses [2020] SGHC 206 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.