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NEWS2today Friday July 16, 2010
Member of Parliament Michael Palmeris now representing blogger
Jayne Gohin her appeal against a High Court rul-ing that Ms Goh had
defamed teacherMrs Janet Wong in a blog post.
Mr Palmer, a partner at Harry EliasPartnership, informed the
courts ofthis on Wednesday. The case was first
reported by T last August.Mrs Wong, represented by lawyersAdrian
Tan and Ong Pei Ching fromDrew & Napier, sued Ms Goh for
alleg-ing online that the former was corrupt.
Ms Gohs former lawyer, Mr KangGim Swee, did not respond to
queriesby press time. The hearing has beenadjourned to Sept 13.
alicia Wong
MP rePresents blogger
Organisation sues individual in landmark casec m p mm fm
alicia [email protected]
SINGAPORE He set up the blog, and con-
tributors then posted entries and comments
alleged to be defamatory. Now, he is being
sued in what may be a landmark case about
who is legally liable on such websites.
This is also one of the very few lawsuits
arising from blog posts and one in which
an organisation has sued an individual.
The Global Indian Foundation (GIF) and
its chairman are now locked in this legal
tussle with Mr A K Narayanan.
GIF is registered with the Singapore
Commissioner of Charities as a trust and
foundation. It runs and operates the Global
Indian International School (GIIS).
Mr Narayanan claims that the blog acts
as a forum for parents to discuss school
matters.
In its claim, filed in February last year,
GIF said that a posting by a user known as
Parents Caucus had painted GIIS unfavour-
ably and accused the school of not respond-
ing to parents comments and queries.
Another post touched on the transpar-
ency of the schools examination results
which GIF took to mean that its school
was untrustworthy, devious and that
the exam results had been misrepresented,
it said in the civil suit.
GIF also took issue with comments
about the schools charity status.
The plaintiffs are thus claiming for libel
and aggravated damages to be assessed,
and damages for loss of enrolment fees
and/or profits. They want an injunction
against the defendant from publishing such
posts or comments in the future.
In his defence, which has been submit-
ted in court and will be heard next week,
Mr Narayanan denied making any defamato-
ry posts or comments against both plaintiffs.
He argued that, in any case, the posts
about GIF were justified because they were
true.
Mr Narayanan alleged that GIF was
being stealthy for suppressing a set of
exam results for 2007-2008, and disclosing
other results favourable to GIF.
He also said that the blogs rules and
commenting policy made it cle
ments were the responsibility
ers who post them and that th
not moderate reader commen
Cases like this, which h
courtroom, remain relativel
even though lawyers say the
up to a 30-per-cent increase i
online defamation over the pa
Legal costs continue to pre
from taking a case to court, said
Yuen, a partner at Harry Elias
It is also not common for
tion to sue an individual for de
a blog, said Rajah and Tann pa
Tan. One other case that has be
involves American Internation
against blogger Zhu Yong Zhe
Mr Tan does not foresee th
queries leading to more law
future, though. Local bloggers
easily identified are generally m
he said. Anonymous netizens,
are difficult to trace.
One of GIFs lawyers, Mr
mar from KhattarWong, told
GIIS is an educational instit
values its reputation in provid
education to its students. Its in
terests of its students for GIIS
to protect its reputation if its
Its in the best interests
of its students for GIIS to take
steps to protect its reputation
if its defamed.
M r nkm, f giF w
today exclusive
