Cheong Wei Chang v Lee Hsien Loong and another matter

JudgeValerie Thean J
Judgment Date05 October 2018
Neutral Citation[2018] SGHC 217
Citation[2018] SGHC 217
Defendant CounselSivakumar Ramasamy and Gabriel Lim (Attorney-General's Chambers),Sui Yi Siong (Eversheds Harry Elias LLP) as Young Amicus Curiae.
Published date12 October 2018
Hearing Date24 September 2018
Plaintiff CounselThe plaintiff in Suit 489 of 2018/defendant in Originating Summons 1071 of 2018 in person
Docket NumberSuit No 489 of 2018 (Summons No 2809 of 2018) and Originating Summons No 1071 of 2018
CourtHigh Court (Singapore)
Date05 October 2018
Subject MatterVexatious litigant,Courts and Jurisdiction,Civil Procedure,Striking out,Inherent powers
Valerie Thean J: Introduction

Access to the courts is a fundamental aspect of the rule of law. At the same time, the services provided by the courts are the resource of the community as a whole. Litigants who pursue claims with vexatious persistence take up a disproportionate amount of attention, to the detriment of other claims and the needs of other litigants. For the vexatious litigant himself, and often his family, such continuous litigation also exacts a financial, emotional and mental cost.

Section 74(1) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Cap 322, 2007 Rev Ed) (“SCJA”) addresses a part of this concern by requiring vexatious litigants to first seek the leave of the court before filing further action. Section 74 of the SCJA reads as follows:

Vexatious litigants

If, on an application made by the Attorney-General, the High Court is satisfied that any person has habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground instituted vexatious legal proceedings in any court or subordinate court, whether against the same person or against different persons, the High Court may, after hearing that person or giving him an opportunity of being heard, order that — no legal proceedings shall without the leave of the High Court be instituted by him in any court or subordinate court; and any legal proceedings instituted by him in any court or subordinate court before the making of the order shall not be continued by him without such leave, and such leave shall not be given unless the High Court is satisfied that the proceedings are not an abuse of the process of the court and that there is prima facie ground for the proceedings. If the person against whom an order is sought under subsection (1) satisfies the High Court that he lacks the means to retain an advocate and solicitor, the High Court shall assign one to him. No appeal shall lie from an order under subsection (1) refusing leave for institution or continuance of legal proceedings. A copy of any order under subsection (1) shall be published in the Gazette. In this section, “legal proceedings” includes any proceedings, process, action, application or appeal in any civil matter or criminal matter

The use of this statutory mechanism carries specific criteria and outcomes. This judgment considers, taking into account the court’s statutory powers, the reach of the court’s inherent powers to regulate and restrain proceedings by vexatious litigants.

Background

On 5 February 2018, Mr Cheong Wei Chang (“Mr Cheong”), filed Suit No 125 of 2018 (“Suit 125”) against Mr Lee Hsien Loong (“Mr Lee”). His Statement of Claim asserted the following:1 The Plaintiff’s contractual document stating terms and agreements, remuneration for the regulations of his activities. The Plaintiff wants a stop on every regulations imposed on his activities from the Defendant and/or his department.

The Statement of Claim listed “supporting reasons” as follows:2 The Defendant’s and/or his department’s regulations concern my health and activities. The Defendant did not address my concerns on the regulations of activities when I asked for the regulations of activities to stop. The Defendant and/or his department continued regulating my activities while withholding information. The Defendant and/or his department continued regulating my activities even during emergencies.

The Statement of Claim enclosed two volumes of documents which were labelled “Supporting Documents 1” and “Supporting Documents 2” respectively. Mr Cheong subsequently tendered a further set of supporting documents labelled “Trial Document 1”. The documents comprised miscellaneous pictures pertaining to a variety of problems, generally with a caption on the side. The pictures and captions traversed a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to, failed job interviews, errors in finance textbooks and health problems. I give three examples for illustration: On page 88 of Trial Document 1,3 Mr Cheong displayed a picture of what appeared to be tissue paper or toilet paper covered in blood, with the caption: “Internal bleeding on and off when passing motion, happened many times over the span of 2016 and 2017. Suspect something is left in the body after consuming food products.” The caption continued to describe other matters related to defaecation. On page 83 of Supporting Document 1,4 Mr Cheong displayed an email exchange between himself and an employee of Citibank Singapore, arranging for an interview for the position of Treasury Service Manager. The caption read: “Interview at Citi for Treasury Services Management was a regulated setting. There were other job interviews during that period affected.” Although it was unclear, I inferred that he was not selected for the position, and he attributed this to the fact that the interview was “a regulated setting”. On page 72 of Trial Document 1,5 Mr Cheong displayed a letter from the Legal Aid Bureau informing him that he was not eligible for legal aid as his disposable capital was above the statutorily prescribed means testing limits. He captioned the picture “Regulations at legal aid bureau”. He claimed that the “Criteria’s do [sic] not make sense”.6

The Attorney-General (“the AG”) acted for Mr Lee in those proceedings. The AG took the view that s 19(3) of the Government Proceedings Act (Cap 121, 1985 Rev Ed) (“GPA”) mandates that proceedings against the Government should be instituted against the Attorney-General where no specific Government department is appropriate. Mr Lee was not being sued in his personal capacity, but rather in his capacity as Prime Minister and head of the Government. Therefore, the AG’s view was that the AG, and not Mr Lee, ought to have been named as the defendant. Whilst that was his view, rather than rest his case on this technical irregularity, he decided to proceed with an application to strike out Mr Cheong’s claim on the ground that it was frivolous, vexatious and disclosed no reasonable cause of action.

On 30 April 2018, I struck out the action for the reason that it disclosed no reasonable cause of action. In brief, Mr Cheong’s claim was that Mr Lee or the Prime Minister’s Office were imposing regulations on his activities. He appeared to be asking for a contract, or for the disclosure of a contract that regulated his activities. Mr Cheong did not, however, plead any facts which demonstrated that Mr Lee or any person from the Prime Minister’s Office had offered any terms to Mr Cheong, or had accepted any offers made by Mr Cheong. The factual premise of Mr Cheong’s contention on being regulated was similarly incoherent. First, Mr Cheong did not plead any facts which demonstrated the existence of any “regulations” that originated from Mr Lee or the Prime Minister’s Office. Second, there were no facts which demonstrated how the “regulations” caused or contributed to the host of problems he had identified in his supporting documents. The details provided in the supporting documents appeared to be a collation of conspiracy theories with no supporting facts. To use the allegation identified at [6(b)] above as an example, it was difficult to understand how and why Mr Lee or the staff in the Prime Minister’s Office or in fact any government body would have any role in Mr Cheong’s interview at Citibank. Even where public servants were involved, such as in [6(c)] above, it was clear that whatever requirements that were imposed upon him were of general application and to the extent that he was suggesting that he was somehow unfairly treated, that could not be sustained. There was simply no basis to suggest that the vicissitudes of life faced by Mr Cheong were caused by the Prime Minister or his department.

On 9 May 2018, a day after a copy of the extracted order of court in Suit 125 was served on Mr Cheong, Mr Cheong filed Suit No 489 of 2018 (“Suit 489”). This suit, which is the suit that presently concerns the court, named Mr Lee as the defendant again. The substance of the Statement of Claim filed for Suit 489 was similar to the earlier Statement of Claim filed, requesting as follows:7 I will want to obtain the receipt, contractual payment/document(s) stating terms and remuneration with regards to the regulations of my activities. I will also want a stop on every regulations of my activities coming from the Defendant and/or his department(s).

The new Statement of Claim enclosed a volume of documents labelled “Trial Document 1 (May 2018)”, which was almost identical to the volume of documents labelled “Trial Document 1”, which Mr Cheong had tendered previously. The Statement of Claim provided a “Description of Trial Document 1 (May 2018)”, which was as follows:8 The contents in Trial Document 1 (May 2018) may concern the receipt, contractual payment/document(s) which I want to obtain. Not every regulations of activities in Trial Document 1 (May 2018) may concern the Defendant and/or his department(s).

The AG took the same view as he did in the earlier suit, that while he ought to have been the named defendant because of the GPA, the best course was to apply to strike out the action. An application to do so was made on 19 June 2018 by way of Summons No 2809 of 2018, which is the summons before me. In this summons, in addition to the first prayer to strike out the action, the AG asked for the following:9 Pursuant to the exercise of this Honourable Court’s inherent powers: no further legal proceedings shall without the leave of the High Court of the Republic of Singapore (“High Court”) be instituted by the Plaintiff against the Defendant in any court in relation to any of the matters that: (i) form the subject matter of; (ii) have been raised in; or (iii) arise out of, the Statement of Claim and/or the Plaintiff’s action herein; and any such...

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7 cases
  • WGM v WGN
    • Singapore
    • Family Court (Singapore)
    • September 26, 2022
    ...points raised in Prof Goh’s article can been seen in the High Court decision of Cheong Wei Chang v Lee Hsien Loon and another matter [2019] 3 SLR 326 (at In connection with the foregoing, the defendant submitted that this court can and ought to exercise its “ancillary jurisdiction” (or inhe......
  • Chan Chi Cheong (trustee of the will of the testator) v Chan Yun Cheong (trustee of the will of the testator)
    • Singapore
    • High Court (Singapore)
    • March 4, 2020
    ...powers of the court have recently been pithily summarised by Valerie Thean J in Cheong Wei Chang v Lee Hsien Loong and another matter [2019] 3 SLR 326 at [66] as follows: 66 The various cases may be summarised into two primary requirements: (a) there must be no statutory exclusion of the in......
  • Chan Yun Cheong (trustee of the will of the testator) v Chan Chi Cheong (trustee of the will of the testator)
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • April 9, 2021
    ...In order for the court to exercise its inherent power, two conditions must be met (Cheong Wei Chang v Lee Hsien Loong and another matter [2019] 3 SLR 326 at [66]): (1) there must be no statutory exclusion of the inherent power; and (2) there must be exceptional circumstances where there is ......
  • Joseph Clement Louis Arokaisamy v Singapore Airlines Ltd and another matter
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    • July 23, 2020
    ...court’s inherent powers to restrain vexatious litigation: see the discussion in Cheong Wei Chang v Lee Hsien Loong and another matter [2019] 3 SLR 326 (“Cheong Wei Chang”) at [53]–[72]. However, I preferred to rely on s 73C of the SCJA rather than the court’s inherent powers, unless those p......
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2 books & journal articles
  • Equity and Trusts
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2021, December 2021
    • December 1, 2021
    ...100 Chan Yun Cheong v Chan Chi Cheong [2021] 2 SLR 67 at [34]. 101 Chan Yun Cheong v Chan Chi Cheong [2021] 2 SLR 67 at [34]. 102 [2019] 3 SLR 326. 103 Chan Yun Cheong v Chan Chi Cheong [2021] 2 SLR 67 at [37] and [38]. 104 Chan Yun Cheong v Chan Chi Cheong [2021] 2 SLR 67 at [43]–[48]. 105......
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    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2018, December 2018
    • December 1, 2018
    ...paras 8.162–8.163 below. 30 [1996] 3 SLR(R) 27. 31 Cap 43, 1999 Rev Ed. 32 [2018] SGHC 201. 33 Cap 390, 1994 Rev Ed. 34 S 706/2015. 35 [2019] 3 SLR 326. See paras 8.138–8.140 below. 36 [2018] SGHC 228. 37 [2018] 2 SLR 1242. See paras 8.188–8.189 below. 38 [2013] 1 SLR 374. 39 Lee Tat Develo......

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