Lawyer M. Ravi no longer representing TOC contributor convicted of defaming

SINGAPORE – Activist lawyer M. Ravi no longer represents Daniel De Costa Augustin, a contributor to sociopolitical website The Online Citizen (TOC) who was earlier convicted of defaming Cabinet members.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 before District Judge Ng Peng Hong on Wednesday (March 16).

The reason behind this change of lawyers was not disclosed in open court.

It was, however, reported earlier this year that Mr Ravi, who has bipolar disorder, has had his medical certificate (MC) extended.

In December last year, the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) said that Mr Ravi must stop practising law for six weeks after receiving an MC from his attending psychiatrist.

LawSoc had said this was a safeguard in Mr Ravi’s conditional practising certificate, which was granted in 2019.

Among the conditions of the certificate, he has to stop practising law if his attending psychiatrist prescribes at least three days of medical leave within any period of 14 calendar days.

The society had also noted that the MC was dated from Dec 2 last year to Jan 13 this year, both dates included.

But Deputy Public Prosecutor Senthilkumaran Sabapathy said in an unrelated proceeding at the High Court on Jan 28 that Mr Ravi was still on medical leave.

The DPP did not disclose the reasons behind the extension of the lawyer’s MC.

For the current case, TOC editor Xu Yuanchen, 39, better known as Terry Xu, and De Costa were each convicted in November last year of one count of defaming Cabinet members.

Judge Ng also found De Costa guilty of an offence under the Computer Misuse Act.

Xu is represented by lawyers Remy Choo and Priscilla Chia.

De Costa had penned a letter that defamed Cabinet members and sent it from an e-mail account of his friend, Mr Sim Wee Lee.

The letter was titled “PAP MP apologises to SDP” and sent to TOC from Mr Sim’s Yahoo account in September 2018.