Koh Poh Seng v Low Leong Meng

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Leslie Chew
• Judgment Date: 13 April 2009
• Neutral Citation: [2009] SGDC 121
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Year: 2009
• Citation: [2009] SGDC 121
• Plaintiff Counsel: Tan Tee Giam (Tan Lim Partnership)
• Defendant Counsel: Shiever Subramaniam Ramachandran (Grays LLC)
• Published date: 18 May 2009

13 April 2009

District Judge Leslie Chew:

Background

1. This is an unusual registar’s appeal. The action by the Plaintiff is an action against the Defendant for defamation. The Plaintiff is a Deputy General Manager of a company known as Daifuku Mechatronics (S) Pte Ltd. (‘DMS’). DMS is a subsidiary of Daifuku Japan. The Plaintiff’s claim is based on an e-mail written by the Defendant to the top management of Daifuku Japan.

2. The e-mail was written in the Japanese language.

3. The Plaintiff applied in Summons No. 7812/2008/V for the impugned words in the Japanese language to be interpreted under O 14 r 12 of the Rules of Court. The Plaintiff furnished a translation by one Mr. Ugaji Kiyomi (UK) while the Defendant had relied on a translation of the impugned words by Ms. Kiyomi Nisha (KN). At the hearing of the application, the Deputy Registrar directed and the parties appeared to have accepted the direction, that there ought to first be a trial on the preliminary issue as to which translation should be adopted in order to decide the Plaintiff’s O 14 r 12 application.

4. The learned Deputy Registrar heard oral evidence on the preliminary issue over two days. He then came to the conclusion that he would adopt the translation provided by the Plaintiff. This was a translation of the impugned words (which is set out in paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Statement of Claim) by UK.

5. Having adopted UK’s translation, the learned Deputy Registrar, based on UK’s translation of the impugned Japanese words, decided that the words complained of by the Plaintiff did bear the defamatory meanings set out in paragraphs 6(1) – (4) and 6(6) of the Statement of Claim.

6. The Defendant has appealed that decision. That is how the matter came before me on a registrar’s appeal on 25 Mar 2009. After hearing the arguments I reserved my decision. I now give my decision and the grounds of my decision.

My Decision

7. From the evidence both in affidavits and the oral testimony at the trial of the preliminary issue where the two translators gave evidence, there is no doubt that UK provided the Plaintiff with a translation of the Japanese words based on or at least closer to ‘the idiomatic method’ that is to say a translation ‘based on meaning and not just on words’. On the other hand, KN testified that she adopted the ‘word for word’ method, that is to say, ‘translating the words literally’.

8. As I have already mentioned the learned Deputy Registrar adopted the translation of UK. The Defendant have now attacked this decision. The Defendant’s attack on the decision of the learned Deputy registrar is two-pronged. First, it is said that UK should not have been accepted as an expert because in respect of his evidence, the Plaintiff had failed to comply with the procedures laid down in O 40A Rules of Court. Second, the Defendant contended that as a matter of law, where the words complained of as being defamatory are in a foreign language, it must be set out in the particulars of claim in that language (emphasis added) and followed by a literal translation not the type of translation offered by the Plaintiff through UK and accepted by the court.

9. Plaintiff Counsel however argued that the literal translation method is not the only method acceptable for the purposes of a claim in Defamation. Also the Plaintiff’s position was that the difference between the law in England (upon which the Defendant’s submission is based, contending that the literal translation is to be adopted) and in Singapore is the system of a jury trial in England. Plaintiff Counsel relied on the learned Deputy Registrar’s differentiation between the jury system and our bench trial system, to explain why in this case it was not necessary to adopt the literal translation method.

10. I will first deal with the Defendant’s contention that the...