LP Thean J:

In this action the plaintiff claims against the defendants damages for libel in respect of statements contained in an article, headed "New light on detentions",published in the issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review ("the Review") for 17 December 1987. The plaintiff is the Prime Minister of Singapore, and the 1st defendant is the editor of the Review; the 2nd defendant is the author of the article complained of,and the 3rd and 4th defendants are publishers and printers respectively of the Review. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd defendants are not resident in Singapore.

Facts

Before I turn to the article complained of, it is necessary to set out in some detail the relevant events that occurred prior to the publication of the article; some of these occurred long before the publication. For my purpose, I take as a starting point the meeting that took place on 9 July 1986 between a team of officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, headed by B.G. Tan Chin Tiong, the Permanent Secretary ("the Permanent Secretary") and Archbishop Gregory Yong, the Archbishop of Singapore ("the Archbishop"). At that meeting, the Permanent Secretary conveyed to the Archbishop the Government's concern of the involvement of Catholic activists in political issues. Principally the complaint of the Ministry was that certain Catholic priests and leaders had been making use of the "Catholic News", which is a periodical publication of the Church, to ventilate their views and criticisms on political, public and other issues unconnected with the Church or the Catholic faith. The Archbishop was reminded that the"Catholic News", of which he was the publisher, was issued a permit to publish news and articles concerning the Church or the Catholic faith and it should therefore confine itself to publishing such matters and not articles on non-religious and controversial issues. The Archbishop was told that if the "Catholic News"continued "to dabble" in political issues, the Government would have to consider withdrawing the permit. He was then informed of the activities of three priests, namely,Father Guillaume Arotcarena, Father Edgar D'Souza and Father Patrick Goh, and their involvement in political issues. He was also briefed on the activities of the organisation of the Church called Justice Peace Commission, and of one Vincent Cheng, the executive secretary of the organisation.

After the meeting with the team of officials, the Archbishop also met Professor Jayakumar, the Minister for Home Affairs ("the Minister"). The Minister informed the Archbishop that there was a cause for serious concern, because certain Catholic activists were mixing religion with politics and using religious institutions and media to exert political pressure on the Government. He said that it was a dangerous course of action for the activists to make use of the Church for the purpose of political agitation against government policies; thus the Government would not tolerate. The Minister also expressed the view that it was undesirable to have a confrontation between the Church and the State.

In November 1986 His Holiness Pope John Paul II visited Singapore, and accompanied by the Archbishop and Archbishop Martino, the Holy See Ambassador to Singapore, he called on the plaintiff. They discussed generally geopolitical developments in various areas. Towards the end of the discussion the plaintiff mentioned to the Pope the behaviours and activities of some priests in Singapore and their use of the church as cover to engage in anti-government campaign in a partisan manner, which he viewed with seriousness.

Then came an important event on 21 May 1987. On that day, the Internal Security Department ("ISD") arrested and detained 16 persons, including Vincent Cheng, in connection with a clandestine communist network. Of the 16 detainees, 4 were full-time workers of the Catholic Church and 6 were voluntary workers in the Church's organisations. After the arrests, Father Patrick Goh made a statemen