SINGAPORE : Rules and principles spelt out by Singapore's Supreme Court on making applications at different stages of a trial apply to all litigants.
This is regardless of their socio-economic or even political status.
Judges of the Court of Appeal made this point on Tuesday.
They had released their grounds of decision for dismissing an appeal by Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) leader Chee Soon Juan who wanted an extension of time to file his appeal against the summary judgement handed down in the case brought against him by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Mr Lee had sued the SDP leader for defaming him in an article about the National Kidney Foundation saga in the party's publication Democrat.
The three court judges, made up of Justices Andrew Phang, V K Rajah and Woo Bih Li, had dismissed Dr Chee's appeal with costs.
The judges stressed that if the rules and principles were not observed and if they were abused, it would result in arbitrariness and "palm tree justice" which meant making decisions solely on the particular circumstances of each case.
They also noted in their grounds that Dr Chee had failed to satisfactorily explain why he did absolutely nothing for close to seven months although the evidence clearly showed that he had already decided to appeal against the judge's decision on the summary judgement. - CNA/ms
yes yes of course.. everything is 'equal'...