Lai Kew Chai J

In the course of directing his party's political campaign to retain the Anson seat in a parliamentary by-election, the defendant held a conference with the media at which he said, inter alia , that he was "inclined to believe" that the plaintiff, an opposition candidate in the by-election, had engineered an exodus of some two-thirds of the audience who had attended the inauguration of the Singapore Democratic Party ("SDP"), a political party which was friendly to the plaintiff and which had invited the plaintiff as its guest speaker.

In a claim in the High Court for damages and an injunction arising out of the slander, the plaintiffs claims were dismissed with costs. Thean J. held that although the words spoken were defamatory of the plaintiff the slander was not actionable because the defamatory words were not calculated to disparage the plaintiff in the discharge of his office as Secretary-General of the Workers' Party ("WP"). That finding was sufficient to dispose of the plaintiffs claims. The learned trial Judge, however, went on to hold that at any rate the defendant had successfully established the defence of fair comment and further that the plaintiff had failed to prove that the defendant in uttering the slander was actuated by express malice, which, if established, would have disentitled the defendant the defence of fair comment. The learned trial Judge, however, rejected the defendant's plea that the slander was uttered on an occasion of qualified privilege.

Being dissatisfied with the decisions of the learned trial Judge, the plaintiff brought this appeal challenging the validity of all three conclusions as recited earlier of the learned trial Judge. No cross-appeal was filed by the defendant. Accordingly, the issues whether the words spoken were defamatory and whether they were spoken on an occasion of qualified privilege are no longer in contention. However, the defendant has filed a Respondent's Notice in which it is stated that if, as contended by the plaintiff, the learned trial Judge had erred in holding that the words complained of were not calculated to disparage the plaintiff in his office as Secretary-General of WP, the defendant will contend in any case that the learned trial Judge had correctly dismissed the plaintiff's claim for damages for slander because the plaintiff's said office was an office of honour or credit and not an office of profit and the particular words complained of by the plaintiff were not actionable without proof of special damage, and there was no such proof in this case.

The plaintiff is and was at all material times the Secretary-General of WP. On October 26, 1981 he was a candidate of his party in a by-election conducted to elect a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Anson. The defendant is the First Deputy Prime Minister in the Government of Singapore. He was at the material time Minister for Health and Second Minister for Defence and the First Organising Secretary of the Peoples' Action Party ("PAP"), the party in government. In that capacity he was responsible for his party's election activities and so far as the Anson by-election was concerned he was responsible to secure the election of the PAP candidate.

In paragraph 4 of his amended Statement of Claim the plaintiff averred that at a conference held for the media on October 26, 1981 the defendant "falsely and maliciously" spoke of the plaintiff and of his office as the Secretary-General of WP the following words:

"SDP had their inaugural earlier this month. Mr. Jeyaretnam attended. After Mr. Jeyaretnam had spoken, he left the hall, and when he left the hall 200 participants left with him. I believe the exodus was engineered. I don't think it was, it did not speak well for the SDP. It shows that the crowd, the limited crowd still look towards Mr. Jeyaretnam, for the time being as a leader of the opposition. But I am inclined to believe that the exodus was contrived by the leader of the Workers' Par