Court of Appeal dismisses TOC’s Terry Xu’s bid to stop contempt of court proceedings

A bid filed by Terry Xu, the editor-in-chief of The Online Citizen (TOC) to stop the Attorney-General from continuing with contempt of court proceedings against him was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Thursday (Aug 25).

Mr Xu was represented in court by opposition leader Lim Tean, who called the dismissal “a very disappointing decision” in a Facebook post late Thursday night.

Contempt of court proceedings had been begun by the Attorney-General after an open letter from Ms Julie O’Connor, an Australian writer, was posted on TOC’s site and Facebook page. The letter had first been published on Ms O’Connor’s personal Facebook page and then reprinted with her permission by TOC.

Her letter was entitled “Open letter to Singapore’s Chief Justice concerning omissions in ‘Opening of Legal Year 2021’ speech.” It was addressed to Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and was written in response to the speech he made on Jan 11, at the start of the legal year.

No proceedings were begun against Ms Connor, and Mr Lim wrote in a Facebook post on Aug 24 that police had never contacted her for investigations into the matter.

In Mr Xu’s application for Judicial Review, he argued that because only he had been prosecuted, and not Ms O’Connor, this was a violation of his constitutional right to equal treatment under the law.

Mr Lim wrote that Mr Xu “sought prohibitory and declaratory orders against the AG to stop him from continuing with the contempt proceedings.”

However, the apex court said in a written judgment that Mr Xu failed the legal test that would have shown that the Attorney-General’s actions resulted in his being treated differently from another equally situated person, The Straits Times reported. 

Justice Steven Chong, who delivered the judgment, said that the treatment of the TOC editor can’t be meaningfully compared with how the Australian writer was treated, given the differentiating factors between the two.

For one, since Ms O’Connor lives in another country, it’s difficult for local authorities to investigate and prosecute her.

Secondly, Mr Xu’s decision to publish the letter on the TOC website and Facebook page meant this was likely to cause more harm than on the writer’s personal sites, as TOC had a wider reach and readership. 

TOC’s broadcasting class license was suspended in September of last year by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). By Sept 16, 2021, Mr Xu took TOC offline.

Mr Lim posted the written decision from the Court of Appeal, writing that he would “comment further on the decision in due course.” /TISG

Terry Xu faces contempt of court proceedings for blog questioning why Chief Justice omitted mentioning Lee Suet Fern, Li Shengwu in speech