Appeal dismissed: High Court upholds Pritam Singh’s conviction

For two months after he found out that then Sengkang MP Raeesah Khan had lied in Parliament, Workers’ Party chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh did not intend for her to set the record straight.

Having been confronted on Aug 7, 2021, with the inconvenient truth of a sitting MP from his party having told an unsolicited lie, Mr Singh had hoped that he would not have to deal with it, and was essentially engaged in an exercise of risk assessment and damage control, the High Court found on Dec 4, 2025.

Justice of the Court of Appeal Steven Chong said that even after Mr Singh decided on Oct 11, 2021, that Ms Khan should clarify her untruth, it was never his position that she should come clean regardless of whether the issue was raised in Parliament again or whether it was discovered by the Government.

In a 78-page judgment released after he dismissed the appeal, Justice Chong said Mr Singh’s case, at best, was that he wanted Ms Khan to come clean if the issue was raised again in Parliament.

If it was not, Mr Singh’s approach “would have been to let sleeping dogs lie – that there was no need to resurrect the issue if it was already ‘buried’”, the judge noted. “Alas, that was not to be.”

On Dec 4, in a hearing that lasted less than 10 minutes, Justice Chong said he found the trial judge’s decision to convict Mr Singh of both charges to be supported by the evidence, and upheld Mr Singh’s Feb 17 conviction on two counts of lying to the Committee of Privileges (COP).

The substance of both charges was that Mr Singh did not intend for Ms Khan to clarify her untruth, and Mr Singh had given false testimony to the COP by claiming that he did, said Justice Chong.

The charges fell within the two-month period where Mr Singh “took no obvious step to get Ms Khan to reveal the truth”, he added in his judgment.

At Mr Singh’s appeal hearing on Nov 4, his lawyers contended that the trial judge “ignored crucial pieces of evidence” in finding him guilty. The defence also said Ms Khan’s account was the sole foundation of both charges, even though she had been evasive under cross-examination and had “fabricated completely fantastical evidence”.

However, Justice Chong said the trial judge had carefully evaluated an entire body of evidence in addition to Ms Khan’s testimony. These included contemporaneous WhatsApp messages, the testimony of other witnesses, and Mr Singh’s own conduct during the period in question.

“It was the totality of the evidence, rather than merely Ms Khan’s evidence, that persuaded the judge to convict,” he said.

The first charge centred on Mr Singh having told Ms Khan at a meeting on Aug 8, 2021, that she was to take her lie to the grave.

Justice Chong said that despite Mr Singh’s “vigorous attempts” at disputing this statement, Ms Khan’s WhatsApp message to her WP aides immediately after the meeting ended strongly corroborated her account.

Taking this together with Mr Singh’s conduct, and the WP leaders’ hope or belief at that meeting that Ms Khan’s lie would not be raised in Parliament again, Justice Chong said he agreed with the trial judge.

Noting that a person’s reaction to significant events is usually revealing, Justice Chong said Mr Singh’s “complete failure to follow up” with Ms Khan between Aug 8 and Oct 3 was evidence that the WP chief saw no need to proactively clarify the untruth in Parliament.

Conversely, steps would have been taken during this period if the intention was to clarify the lie, given the potentially serious political fallout if it were not properly managed, he added.

“In sum, because of (Mr Singh’s) belief that Ms Khan’s lie was unlikely to surface again, he did not think that there was any need to rock the boat by volunteering the truth,” said the judge.

The second charge centred on Mr Singh having told Ms Khan at their Oct 3 meeting that “I will not judge you”. The prosecution and defence agreed that Mr Singh had said this, but disagreed on what he meant.

Justice Chong said the meeting must be viewed in the context of its timing – a day before Parliament was due to sit – and Mr Singh wanted to discuss how Ms Khan should respond if her untruth came up then.

The judge said the ordinary meaning of the phrase had to do with someone taking a course of action considered to be objectionable.

“Judgment” carries a pejorative connotation of disapprobation, and a person who does the right thing needs no reassurance against receiving “judgment”, he added.

Therefore, ordinarily speaking, the statement would be to reassure the recipient that she will not be judged negatively if she does something objectionable like maintaining a lie, he said.

The judge also said it was “curious” that Mr Singh chose not to call other leaders of the WP as witnesses, as they could have corroborated his account of events.

Significantly, this meant that Ms Khan’s testimony that WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim had said at their Aug 8 meeting that the untruth would probably not come up again was unchallenged. Her view was shared, at least implicitly, by Mr Singh, and Justice Chong said this was a justifiable inference by the trial judge.

It was only at an Oct 11, 2011, meeting with former WP chief Low Thia Khiang that Mr Singh shifted from not wanting Ms Khan to correct her false statement, to deciding that she should now do so.

Justice Chong said: “Having never taken the position until the Oct 11 meeting that Ms Khan should clarify the untruth, it necessarily follows that (Mr Singh) did not intend that she should do so as at the Aug 8 meeting (the focus of the first charge) or the Oct 3 meeting (the focus of the second charge).”

After the hearing ended, Mr Singh proceeded to pay his $14,000 fine. “Might as well get it done,” he told reporters at the payment station.

Verdict a reputational hit to the WP: Observers

Speaking to the media after leaving the Supreme Court building, Mr Singh said he was “disappointed” with the verdict, but accepted the judgment without reservation.

“I certainly took too long to respond to Raeesah’s lie in Parliament. I take responsibility for that,” he said.

“This has been a long journey. Throughout it all, I have done my best to act with sincerity and fulfil my responsibilities to Parliament and to Singaporeans. My commitment in that regard remains unchanged.”

He also addressed remarks he made in a CNA programme aired after the appeal hearing, in which he said his political opponents “will do whatever it takes to lower my esteem and the esteem of my party in the public eye”.

Mr Singh said that as an opposition MP, he will have political differences with his opponents, “but those differences do not extend to tearing the system down and questioning or impugning the integrity of the courts or even civil servants. That cannot be how we conduct opposition politics in Singapore”.

Mr Singh is the first sitting opposition MP to be convicted of a criminal offence in almost 40 years. Following the hearing, the WP said it was studying the court’s verdict and the grounds of decision.

“The WP has weathered many challenges over the years... We are deeply grateful to everyone who has stood with us, in moments of progress and through difficult times,” it said in a statement.

Observers such as Associate Professor Eugene Tan said that while the High Court’s decision to uphold Mr Singh’s conviction was not a politically mortal blow, it was nonetheless a severe reputational hit for the WP chief, given that he was found to have lied by three separate bodies – the COP, a district court, and now the High Court.

“The sting in the judgment released today really lies in the elaborate web of lies and obfuscation that Singh conjured in order that the untruth was buried and would have no chance of resurrection,” said Prof Tan, who is a law don at the Singapore Management University and a former Nominated MP.

Nevertheless, the WP occupies a unique position in Singapore’s political landscape as the only opposition party in Parliament and the only party whose standing comes close to that of the PAP, so the setback will be cushioned somewhat, he added.

“With the 15th Parliament still in its early days, he and his party will have time to put this matter behind them,” said Prof Tan.

Dr Gillian Koh, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies, noted that with the general election already over, the outcome of the appeal has no electoral effect.

“The question is whether parliamentarians, regardless of which side of the House they are on, and the public understand parliamentary processes and the standards of integrity and decorum that have to be upheld,” she said.

Such matters affect the dignity of the House and Singapore’s self-respect as a democracy, she added.

“We all have an interest in ensuring that Singaporeans and external parties see this as a legislative body that is always to be taken seriously and is accountable to us all,” said Dr Koh.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

Pritam Singh v Public Prosecutor [2025] SGHC 242

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