SINGAPORE – Activist lawyer M. Ravi not represents Daniel De Costa Augustin, a contributor to sociopolitical web site The Online Citizen (TOC), who was earlier convicted of defaming Cabinet members.
De Costa, 38, is now represented by Mr Chung Ting Fai, who appeared earlier than District Judge Ng Peng Hong on Wednesday (March 16).
The cause behind this transformation of legal professionals was not disclosed in open courtroom.
It was, nevertheless, reported earlier this 12 months that Mr Ravi, who has bipolar dysfunction, has had his medical certificates (MC) prolonged.
In December final 12 months, the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) stated that Mr Ravi should cease practising legislation for six weeks after receiving an MC from his attending psychiatrist.
LawSoc had stated this was a safeguard in Mr Ravi’s conditional practising certificates, which was granted in 2019.
Among the circumstances of the certificates, he has to cease practising legislation if his attending psychiatrist prescribes at the very least three days of medical go away inside any interval of 14 calendar days.
The society had additionally famous that the MC was dated from Dec 2 final 12 months to Jan 13 this 12 months, each dates included.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor Senthilkumaran Sabapathy stated in an unrelated continuing on the High Court on Jan 28 that Mr Ravi was nonetheless on medical go away.
The DPP didn’t disclose the explanations behind the extension of the lawyer’s MC.
For the present case, TOC editor Xu Yuanchen, 39, higher often called Terry Xu, and De Costa have been every convicted in November final 12 months of 1 rely of defaming Cabinet members.
Judge Ng additionally discovered De Costa responsible of an offence beneath the Computer Misuse Act.
Xu is represented by legal professionals Remy Choo and Priscilla Chia.
De Costa had penned a letter that defamed Cabinet members and despatched it from an e-mail account of his buddy, Mr Sim Wee Lee.
The letter was titled “PAP MP apologises to SDP” and despatched to TOC from Mr Sim’s Yahoo account in September 2018.
The courtroom heard that the letter said, amongst different issues, that there was “corruption at the highest echelons” of the People’s Action Party management.
The sociopolitical web site then revealed the letter with the title “The Take Away From Seah Kian Ping’s (sic) Facebook Post” and attributed it to Willy Sum, a reputation generally utilized by Mr Sim.
TOC and its varied social media channels have been taken offline in September final 12 months, forward of a deadline set by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
This growth got here after IMDA had earlier suspended TOC’s class licence to run its web site and social media channels as a consequence of its repeated failure to adjust to authorized obligations to declare all sources of funding.
The circumstances involving Xu and De Costa have been adjourned to April 8 for his or her mitigation and sentencing.
For defamation, an offender could be jailed for as much as two years and fined.
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