Last week, cabinet ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan took legal action against Lee Hsien Yang over his Ridout Road allegations.
These were over statements that he made on Facebook in July and did not retract despite the formers’ threats to sue.
Mr Shanmugam and Mr Vivian have since applied to serve Mr Lee his defamation papers through Facebook.
They did so on 28 Aug after noting that the Singapore court is the most appropriate forum to hear the case.
While the two plaintiffs are based in Singapore, Mr Lee is currently in the United Kingdom (UK).
The Straits Times (ST) reported that ministers Shanmugam and Vivian have decided to serve Mr Lee’s papers via Facebook.
Their lawyers had applied to do so on the basis that it was impractical to serve the papers to Mr Lee in person.
Mr Lee Hsien Yang is currently residing overseas and has been doing so since 2022.
Source: The Times
As such, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said that “substituted service by Facebook messenger will probably be effective in bringing the court papers to the notice of the defendant”.
The ministers are then seeking a court order to acknowledge that the papers have been served in Portable Document Format (PDF).
They had sent the PDF file to Mr Lee’s profile page via Facebook Messenger.
In 2016, the High Court ruled that plaintiffs could serve court papers via Facebook, Skype, or Internet message boards.
However, this is only if the defendant cannot be reached in person.
The Supreme Court heard the plaintiffs’ cases on Tuesday (5 Sep), according to a hearing list on the Singapore Courts’ website.
Previously, the two ministers had sent lawyers’ letters to Mr Lee in July — asking him to apologise and pay for damages.
Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported that the latter’s Facebook post on 23 July led to a correction direction.
However, Mr Lee posted a follow-up stating that he had “simply stated facts”.
Additionally, he asked the two ministers to sue him in the UK since he had written the post there.
Should Mr Lee lose the case and refuse to pay for damages, he may face bankruptcy as well as seizure and sale of his local assets.
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Featured image adapted from K Shanmugam Sc on Facebook, Vivian Balakrishnan on Facebook & The Times.
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