Singapore Democratic Party Chief Chee Soon Juan tried twice yesterday to get either the Prime Minister of Minister Mentor removed from court.
PM Lee Hsien Loong took the stand in the High Court yesterday, in a hearing to assess damages in a defamation suit he and MM Lee Kuan Yew had won against the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), its secretary- general Dr Chee and his sister Chee Siok Chin.
Yesterday, MM Lee was also present in court. In 2006, the High Court ruled that the Chee siblings and the SDP had defamed PM Lee and MM Lee in the party newsletter, The New Democrat.
PM Lee and MM Lee sued Dr Chee and the SDP leadership for repeating remarks which alleged that they were corrupt and covered up wrongdoings at the NKF. Six SDP central executive committee members subsequently apologised. But Dr Chee and his sister did not.
Dr Chee's argument yesterday was that he did not want them to hear what he had to say, as it would help them prepare their answers during cross-examination, The Straits Times reported. Both requests, however, were rejected by Justice Belinda Ang.
His first try was aimed at getting MM Lee removed, and occurred just shortly after MM stepped into court. As PM Lee was being cross-examined at the time, he said he did not want MM Lee to be able to listen in on the questions.
He reasoned that since the affidavits filed by both Lees were very similar, his questions to both of them would be similar. "I do not want Mr Lee Senior to be in here listening to all these questions and then come in to the courtroom tomorrow and be prepared," he said.
"I'm not making a vehement objection on this matter. I'm asking that you consider the position. "I'm asking that the second plaintiff (MM Lee) be excused from court."
The Lees' lawyer, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh argued that since MM Lee was a party to the case, he is entitled to be present. Justice Ang ruled that MM could remain.
The hearing yesterday had earlier been scheduled to start two weeks ago but was delayed. This was because of Dr Chee's request for more time to reply to an application by the Lees to strike out the affidavits filed by the Chee siblings and former solicitor-general and opposition politician Francis Seow.
Back to yesterday's hearing, the initial setback did not deter Dr Chee from trying again later in the day.
When Mr Davinder objected to a document Dr Chee produced while cross examining PM Lee and asked him how it was relevant to the case, he replied: "I would like to tell you, but I don't want to tell you in the presence of the witness."
This sparked a 10-minute exchange where Dr Chee was continually asked the relevance of the document. He then continually replied he would tell the court once both Lees had stepped outside. "It's a simple matter, the witness steps outside and I wouldn't take three to four minutes," he said.
To put an end to it, Justice Ang let Dr Chee ask his questions about the document. But the questioning was later halted when it became clear that it had in fact no relevance to the case.
The question had to do with whether the Lees had used a civil servant to craft a document. Mr Davinder jumped on it: "It was quite clear where these questions were going. This is why I objected.
"It is not difficult to see Dr Chee a mile away." But the Lees were not the only targets. At one point, Dr Chee also tried to get the court to evict their security officers.
"Why are these people here. This court should not be in this whole matter of having this setup where one side has security guards. Shouldn't we be on parity?
"Call in my party members in case one of them tries do something to me... The least you can do is ask them to leave," he said.
