Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh speaking to the media at the Supreme Court on Dec 4. - Photo: ST
SINGAPORE: Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh lost the appeal against his conviction, with the court upholding the sentence of S$14,000 in fines.
Pritam, 49, was convicted on Feb 17 on two charges for lying to the Committee of Privileges (COP) about the role that he had played in advising former WP MP Raeesah Khan to conceal an untruth to Parliament. He had appealed against the conviction.
On Thursday (Dec 4), Court of Appeal Justice Steven Chong said that while he disagreed with Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan’s assessment on some aspects of the evidence, he ultimately found that the decision to convict Pritam on both charges was supported by the evidence.
Here are the key points of the judgment:
About the case
Khan lied in Parliament on Aug 3, 2021.
She had fabricated an anecdote that falsely claimed she had accompanied a rape victim to make a police report, and that officers handling the case had exhibited inappropriate behaviour.
She told Pritam, the Leader of the Opposition, that it was a lie over a phone call on Aug 7, 2021.
She repeated the lie in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021.
She admitted to Parliament that she had been lying on Nov 1, 2021, and the matter was referred to the COP.
COP proceedings had focused on Khan’s conduct, with Pritam appearing before the committee to give evidence.
The committee’s report was presented to Parliament on Feb 10, 2022, recommending that Pritam be referred to the Public Prosecutor to consider if he should be prosecuted for his conduct before the COP.
Pritam was charged on March 19, 2024, for lying to the COP, and convicted almost a year later.
Grave and Judgment statements
The appeal looked largely at the findings of Judge Tan in relation to two statements made by Pritam to Khan.
Each of the statements corresponded to the two charges against him.
The first was the “Grave Statement”, where Pritam told Khan on Aug 8, 2021, to take the untruth “to the grave”.
This was at a meeting attended by Khan and Pritam, and WP members Sylvia Lim and Faisal Manap.
(From left) Former WP MP Raeesah Khan and former WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan. - Photo: ST
During the meeting, Khan told the others she had lied, following which Pritam made the Grave Statement.
The first charge Pritam faced related to how he had lied to the COP saying he had wanted Khan to clarify the untruth after their meeting on Aug 8, 2021.
The court’s judgment on this was based on whether he had indeed made the Grave Statement.
By making the Grave Statement, it would mean he did not want Khan to clarify the untruth, and would have thus lied to the COP.
Pritam had denied making the statement, but the courts found that the evidence showed he did indeed make it.
The second statement in question was the “Judgment Statement”, where Pritam told Khan “I will not judge you” when they met on Oct 3, 2021.
That day, Pritam had visited Khan at her home. They spoke about what Khan ought to do regarding the lie she had told.
While it was accepted by all parties that Pritam had indeed made the statement, what was in dispute was its context and meaning.
The second charge Pritam faced was for lying to the COP that he had wanted Khan to clarify the lie if it came up in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021.
To determine if he did indeed lie regarding this, the courts sought to determine the context and meaning of the Judgment Statement.
The judges reasoned that if Pritam’s intention in making the statement to Khan was to not judge her if she continued to maintain the lie, then it would mean that he lied to the COP about intending for her to clarify it in Parliament.
Justice Chong added that this would mean Pritam would have, at best, been indifferent to the need for clarification.
Pritam claimed he told Khan that she would have to take “ownership and responsibility” before saying “I will not judge you”.
He said this meant he would not judge Khan if she took ownership and responsibility in relation to the untruth, and this meant clarifying it in Parliament.
Evidence
Justice Chong found that Judge Tan’s decision to convict Pritam was supported by the evidence, even though he did not agree with “some peripheral aspects”.
With regard to the first charge, Justice Chong said an important contextual fact was that at the meeting with Lim and Manap on Aug 8, 2021, Lim had said the lie would probably not come up again in Parliament.
Pritam appeared to share the same sentiment, as he did not expressly disagree or say anything to distance himself from it.
With this context in mind, Justice Chong said the various pieces of evidence showed that Pritam did not want Khan to clarify the untruth as at Aug 8, 2021.
These pieces of evidence included Khan’s message that she sent to WP members Loh Pei Ying and Yudhisthra Nathan shortly after the meeting on Aug 8, 2021, telling them about the Grave Statement.
Pritam’s inaction after the meeting then was also given weight, as he did not follow-up with Khan or the other WP leaders on the untruth for two months.
It was this conduct that served as evidence that his understanding at the time was that the untruth did not need to be proactively clarified.
Justice Chong said: “Because of (Pritam’s) belief that Khan’s lie was unlikely to surface again, he did not think that there was any need to rock the boat by volunteering the truth. (He) had therefore made a false statement to the COP when he claimed otherwise.”
For the second charge, Justice Chong agreed with Judge Tan that the Judgment Statement would only make sense if Pritam was telling Khan that he would not look poorly on or disapprove of her for taking a certain course of action.
He noted that the phrase “I will not judge you” is a form of reassurance, said when it is believed that the recipient of the phrase may do something typically said to be wrong.
Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh at the Supreme Court on Dec 4. - Photo: ST
It was also established that the decision to clarify the untruth was taken only after a meeting between Pritam, Lim and former WP secretary-general Low Thia Khiang on Oct 11, 2021.
Low was told they were considering clarifying the untruth by holding a press conference.
Low had then advised them to have Khan clarify the untruth in Parliament instead, irrespective of whether the Government could uncover it.
Hence, this showed Pritam had not yet decided to clarify the untruth in Parliament prior to that.
Justice Chong said that by extension, it must follow that Pritam’s evidence to the COP that he had wanted to convey to Khan that she should clarify the untruth at the meeting on Oct 3, 2021, was untrue.
Fuzzy details and deleted messages
There were two points where Justice Chong did not agree with Judge Tan’s assessment. This however, did not impact the proving of the two charges.
The first was how Judge Tan had given weight to Loh’s evidence regarding what was discussed during a meeting on Aug 10, 2021.
Pritam had met Loh and Nathan at the Aljunied Town Council headquarters that day.
Before Nathan arrived, Loh spoke to Pritam and made reference to Khan’s sexual assault by sharing details on sexual assault survivors.
Loh had testified that she asked Pritam if Khan’s anecdote would be followed up in Parliament, and that he appeared to nod his head and affirm it probably would not.
However, she also said her recollection was “fuzzy”.
Justice Chong said this made it unsafe to attach weight to the evidence regarding Pritam’s alleged response that day.
A second aspect Justice Chong doubted was Judge Tan’s findings concerning Loh and Nathan’s deletion of messages from their phones.
The duo had deleted several messages from their group chat which had been brought up as evidence during proceedings.
Judge Tan appeared to have accepted that they deleted their messages due to a fear that their phones had been hacked rather than a desire to conceal their roles and actions.
Justice Chong however, said the selective manner in which some of the messages were deleted and others were left undeleted raised questions as to the strength of Judge Tan’s findings on the matter.
But he also noted that this had no effect on the more crucial findings with regard to the Judgement Statement having been communicated to them.
Damage control
Pritam did not call some of the other WP leaders as witnesses, even though they had attended some material meetings with him.
Justice Chong noted no adverse inference had been drawn from this.
He said: “I will say no more, save to express that it is curious that the appellant did not avail himself of seemingly available evidence which may have served as corroboration of his account of events.”
In concluding the judgment, Justice Chong said that in the two months from the time Raeesah told Pritam she had lied, up till it was decided she should clarify the untruth, Pritam was hoping that he would not have to deal with it.
“The appellant was confronted with an inconvenient truth: A sitting MP from his party had told the untruth, an unsolicited lie,” he said.
“The WP leaders, including the appellant, were trying to manage the risks of admitting to the untruth. It was for this reason that the WP leaders were examining issues like – would the untruth be raised again in Parliament? Would the Government be able to discover the untruth?”
He said the WP leaders were essentially engaged in an exercise of risk assessment and damage control, and that right till the end, it was never Pritam’s position that Khan would come clean.
At most, Pritam wanted to clarify the lie only if it was raised in Parliament.
Justice Chong pondered what would have happened if the matter had indeed not been raised in Parliament again.
He said: “It appears to me that the appellant’s approach in that scenario would have been to let sleeping dogs lie; that is, that there was no need to resurrect the issue if it was already ‘buried’.
“Alas, that was not to be.” - The Straits Times/ANN
