Lai Swee Lin Linda v Attorney-General

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Judith Prakash JA
• Judgment Date: 05 September 2016
• Neutral Citation: [2016] SGCA 54
• Plaintiff Counsel: The appellant in person
• Date: 05 September 2016
• Docket Number: Civil Appeal No 205 of 2015
• Hearing Date: 09 May 2016
• Subject Matter: Courts and Jurisdiction,Vexatious litigants
• Year: 2016
• Defendant Counsel: Khoo Boo Jin, Zheng Shaokai and Ruth Yeo (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Citation: [2016] SGCA 54
• Published date: 14 September 2016

Judith Prakash JA (delivering the judgment of the court): Introduction

Since January 2000, the appellant in the present appeal, Ms Lai Swee Lin Linda (“Ms Lai”), has appeared in our courts many times in the course of her mission to obtain legal redress to which she considers she is entitled. Between August 2000 and today, there have been no fewer than ten written decisions about Ms Lai’s cases. Of these, nine grew out of Ms Lai’s attempts to advance her claims. The tenth, the decision from which this appeal lies, is a judgment on Originating Summons No 1014 of 2014 (“the Present Application”), an application by the respondent, the Attorney-General (“the AG”), to have Ms Lai restrained from continuing with such attempts.

On 19 October 2015, Woo Bih Li J granted the Present Application and made orders to the following effect (see Attorney-General v Lai Swee Lin Linda [2015] 5 SLR 1447 (“the Judgment”)): That pursuant to s 74 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Cap 322, 2007 Rev Ed) (“the SCJA”), Ms Lai cannot, without the leave of the High Court, institute any legal proceedings in any court or subordinate court with respect to matters or legal proceedings against the Government (whether in the name of the Public Service Commission (“the PSC”), the AG or otherwise) in any way arising from and/or connected to: her employment at the Land Office of the Ministry of Law (“the Land Office”) from 28 November 1996 to 21 December 1998; the retrospective extension of her probationary period as a Senior Officer Grade III for a year with effect from 28 November 1997 to 27 November 1998; the termination of her employment at the Land Office with effect from 21 December 1998 by the Senior Personnel Board F constituted under the Public Service (Special and Senior Personnel Boards) Order 1994 (“the Senior Personnel Board”); her appeals to the Appeals Board constituted under the Public Service (Personnel Boards and Appeals Board) Regulations 1994 (“the Appeals Board”) and the PSC; and/or the subject matter of the legal proceedings enumerated in a schedule that was appended to the Present Application (this schedule is reproduced in full in the appendix to this judgment). That any legal proceedings in any way arising from and/or connected to the matters described in sub-para (a) above instituted by Ms Lai in any court before the making of the above order shall not be continued by her 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.

In short, Ms Lai has been designated a “vexatious litigant” in relation to her claims arising out of her employment at the Land Office, and has been prevented from instituting any further legal proceedings as well as continuing existing legal proceedings in relation to those claims without the leave of the High Court. Ms Lai is dissatisfied with Woo J’s decision and has appealed to this court.

The crux of this appeal is whether s 74 of the SCJA has been correctly applied to Ms Lai. We will first examine the legal principles that govern an application under this section before turning to the facts.

Section 74 of the SCJA: the applicable principles

Section 74 of the SCJA provides as follows:

Vexatious litigants

74.—(1) 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 — (a) no legal proceedings shall without the leave of the High Court be instituted by him in any court or subordinate court; and (b) 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.

(2) 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. (3) No appeal shall lie from an order under subsection (1) refusing leave for institution or continuance of legal proceedings.

…

(5) In this section, “legal proceedings” includes any proceedings, process, action, application or appeal in any civil matter or criminal matter.

[emphasis added]

Two High Court cases have dealt with s 74(1) of the SCJA in some detail, namely, Attorney-General v Tee Kok Boon [2008] 2 SLR(R) 412 (“Tee Kok Boon”) and Attorney-General v Mah Kiat Seng [2013] 4 SLR 788 (“Mah Kiat Seng”). (We should point out that Tee Kok Boon actually concerned s 74(1) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Cap 322, 1999 Rev Ed) (“the SCJA (1999 Rev Ed)”) rather than s 74(1) of the SCJA (as defined at [2(a)] above), but this difference is immaterial as the two versions of s 74(1) are substantially the same.) In the earlier decision, Tee Kok Boon, Woo J, who also heard that case, considered a number of issues relating to the types of legal proceedings to which s 74(1) applied and examined the interpretation of similar legislation in jurisdictions such as Canada and England before concluding that due to the legislative purpose behind s 74(1), it had to be given a broad interpretation. Woo J accordingly interpreted the term “instituted vexatious legal proceedings” in s 74(1) as extending to criminal proceedings, proceedings in the Court of Appeal and interlocutory proceedings. To put the matter beyond doubt, Woo J’s interpretation was given statutory effect in 2011 by the addition of sub-s (5) to s 74. The discussion on s 74(1) that follows reflects in large part the principles enunciated in these two High Court decisions.

Vexatious litigation has a detrimental impact not only on the court, but also on the opposing party and on the vexatious litigant himself. The principal purpose of s 74(1) of the SCJA is to prevent abuse of the process of the court. As observed by Laws LJ in the July 2000 English Court of Appeal decision of HM Attorney-General v Ebert (Case No CO/4506/98, unreported) at [50], “the real vice [in such cases], apart from the vexing of [the litigant’s] opponents, is that scarce and valuable judicial resources [are] extravagantly wasted on barren and misconceived litigation, to the detriment of other litigants with real cases to try”. The court’s limited resources should instead be allocated to, and utilised on, meritorious disputes. Section 74(1) allows the court to strike a balance between allowing litigants to enjoy their right to have unfettered access to the courts and protecting the courts from being inundated with endless and unmeritorious litigation to the detriment of other parties with meritorious causes.

In addition, s 74(1) of the SCJA serves to protect the opposing party who faces a litany of legal proceedings brought by the vexatious litigant. Vexatious litigation has the effect of oppressing the opposing party, and diverting that party’s attention and resources away from other more worthwhile pursuits. In many such cases, the opposing party is unwillingly dragged along by the vexatious litigant as the latter obsessively takes step after step in the courts to achieve his aim. Even if the opposing party is awarded costs, such costs would hardly be adequate compensation for the waste of time and resources, not to mention the emotional strain that would have been inflicted if the opposing party is an individual.

Lastly, an order under s 74(1) of the SCJA serves as a means of protecting the vexatious litigant from himself. If such an order is not made, the vexatious litigant, having lost sight of rationality or reality and being armed with an aggravated sense of injustice about his case, is very likely to persist indefinitely in instituting legal proceedings.

It is clear from s 74(1) of the SCJA that to be labelled as a “vexatious litigant”, the litigant in question must have “habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground instituted vexatious legal proceedings”. The mere institution of vexatious legal proceedings, without more, does not bring s 74(1) into play. The requirements that the litigant must have acted “habitually” and “persistently” suggest that a pattern of conduct is necessary. We agree with the High Court in Tee Kok Boon and Mah Kiat Seng that the words “habitually” and “persistently” are ordinary English words which should not be given any technical meaning specifically for the purpose of s 74(1) (see Tee Kok Boon at [105], where the court cited with implicit approval a passage from the Canadian case of Attorney-General v Betts [2004] NSWSC 901, and Mah Kiat Seng at [15]). As commonly defined and interpreted, the word “habitually” suggests the institution of legal proceedings almost as a matter of course or almost automatically when the appropriate conditions exist, while the word “persistently” suggests determination and the act of doggedly continuing in the face of difficulty or opposition.

The term “vexatious” is likewise given its ordinary meaning. Legal proceedings are regarded as vexatious if they are instituted with the intention of annoying or embarrassing the opposing party, or are brought for collateral purposes and not for the purpose of having the court adjudicate on the issues to which they give rise. Further, legal proceedings which are so obviously untenable or groundless as to be utterly hopeless may also be regarded as vexatious, even if the litigant’s motives are wholly innocent.

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