J. B. Jeyaretnam

Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam (5 January 1926 – 30 September 2008) was a Singaporean politician and lawyer who served as secretary-general of the opposition Workers' Party from 1971 to 2001 and was the de facto Leader of the Opposition between 1981 and 1986. He was also an elected Member of Parliament for Anson SMC between 1981 and 1986, and a Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) from 1997 to 2001.

Born in Jaffna in 1926, Jeyaretnam grew up in Malaya and Singapore before he studied law in London and qualified as a barrister in 1951. Upon returning to Singapore, he worked in the legal service from 1952 to 1963 before setting up his own law firm in 1968. He entered politics in 1971 and became the secretary-general of the Workers' Party. Thereafter, he contested the 1972, 1976, 1980 general election, and the 1977 and 1979 by-elections, but lost to candidates of the governing People's Action Party (PAP) in all of them.

Jeyaretnam had his first electoral victory in the 1981 by-election in Anson SMC when he won 51.93% of the vote against the PAP's Pang Kim Hin and United People's Front's Harbans Singh, becoming the first opposition politician to be elected to Parliament since Singapore gained independence in 1965. He contested the 1984 general election in Anson SMC again and won with 56.81% of the vote against the PAP's Ng Pock Too.

In 1986, following convictions for making false statements about the Workers' Party's accounts, Jeyaretnam was not only fined and imprisoned for a month, but also lost his parliamentary seat. After he was disqualified from practising law in 1987, he appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which reversed his disbarment in 1988 and called his conviction "a grievous injustice". Jeyaretnam appealed to Wee Kim Wee, the President of Singapore, for his convictions to be removed so that he could return to Parliament, but was denied. Since the Workers' Party team in Cheng San GRC were the "best losers" in an election in which there were fewer than six elected opposition Members of Parliament, they were offered one parliamentary seat as a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP), which Jeyaretnam took up. However, Jeyaretnam lost his NCMP seat and left the Workers' Party in 2001 when he was declared bankrupt after failing to keep up with damages from a series of defamation suits against him. He died of heart failure on 30 September that year.

Early life and education An Anglican Christian of Sri Lankan Tamil descent, His father, Victor Lord Joshua, moved to Malaya and took up a position with the Public Works Department.

Jeyaretnam grew up in Johor and started his formal education in Muar in a French convent where his eldest sister was a student. When his education at English College Johore Bahru

After the war, Jeyaretnam moved to Singapore, where he continued his education at St. Andrew's School. In 1948, he left for England to read law at University College London and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) in 1951. In his memoir, Jeyaretnam revealed that he had crossed swords with Lee Kuan Yew when the latter was still a practising lawyer, at times when Jeyaretnam was the deputy public prosecutor and later the presiding court judge. He left the legal service in 1963 for private practice and eventually set up his own law firm in 1968.

In February 1970, a month after the abolition of jury trials in Singapore, Jeyaretnam represented Teo Cheng Leong, who had been found guilty of shooting at a police officer with intent to cause harm and was the first person to be sentenced to death in Singapore by a non-jury trial court with two judges. Before the trial, Jeyaretnam sought to have Teo tried by a jury since his case took place in March 1969, ten months before the abolition of jury trials, so the case should be conferred for a jury trial. Jeyaretnam's request was overruled and Teo was eventually hanged in May 1971.

In 1983, Jeyaretnam defended Tan Mui Choo, one of the three perpetrators of the 1981 Toa Payoh ritual murders.

Political career Elections between 1971 and 1980 In June 1971, Jeyaretnam joined the opposition Workers' Party and became the party's secretary-general. He made his electoral debut in the 1972 general election when he contested in Farrer Park SMC against Lee Chiaw Meng of the governing People's Action Party (PAP) and S. A. Latiff of the opposition United People's Front (UPF). He lost with 23.11% of the vote against Lee's 73.82%, but did better than Latiff's 3.07%. In the same year, Jeyaretnam represented Chiam See Tong, founder of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party, in filing a writ in the High Court seeking damages from Defence Minister Howe Yoon Chong and Foreign Affairs Minister S. Dhanabalan for slandering him during the speeches they made in 1980. Chiam eventually dropped the lawsuits against Howe and Dhanabalan after they publicly apologised to him.

In 1982, a complaint against Jeyaretnam was referred to the Singapore Parliament's Committee of Privileges, which looks into allegations of breaches of parliamentary privilege. He received a reprimand for not declaring a conflict of interest in an issue he brought up in Parliament which involved a person whom he was representing as a lawyer.

Jeyaretnam contested in Anson SMC again during the 1984 general election and won with 56.81% of the vote against the PAP candidate Ng Pock Too's 43.19%.

Parliamentary fines and loss of parliamentary seat In March 1986, Jeyaretnam was referred to the Committee of Privileges again and after he accused the party's leaders of not offering to help him with his debt payments. On 17 June 2008, the Registry of Societies approved the Reform Party's application, making it an officially registered society in Singapore. Jeyaretnam served as the interim secretary-general of the party, which had only the legal minimum of ten members at the time of its creation.

Legal troubles 1977–1979: Defamation suit from Lee Kuan Yew After the 1976 general election, Lee Kuan Yew demanded an unconditional apology from Jeyaretnam for making the following remarks in a speech during the lead-up to the election: "Mr Lee Kuan Yew has managed his fortune very well. He is the Prime Minister of Singapore. His wife is the senior partner of Lee & Lee and his brother is the director of several companies, including Tat Lee Bank in Market Street; the bank which was given a permit with alacrity, banking permit licence, when other banks were having difficulties getting their licence." and John Mortimer respectively, with the latter defending Jeyaretnam pro bono.

1983–1986: Convictions for making false statements In December 1983, Jeyaretnam and Workers' Party chairman Wong Hong Toy were charged with falsely declaring the party's accounts. They were also accused of defrauding Tay Boon Too, a PAP Member of Parliament whom the Workers' Party had unsuccessfully sued for defamation in 1972. The suit had been dismissed by High Court judge Frederick Arthur Chua, who had also ordered the Workers' Party to pay Tay's legal costs amounting to S$14,000.

In early 1984, senior district judge Michael Khoo found Jeyaretnam and Wong guilty of one of the four charges they faced but acquitted them of the other three. After both the defendants and the prosecution appealed against the judgement, the case was heard in May 1984 by Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin. In April 1985, Wee found Jeyaretnam and Wong guilty of two of the three charges they had been acquitted of earlier, and fined them S$2,000 each. He also ordered a retrial for the offence of making a false declaration. noting in their judgement:

After the JCPC's judgement, Jeyaretnam requested President Wee Kim Wee to remove his convictions. However, the President, constitutionally bound to act in accordance with the Cabinet's advice, denied the request, so Jeyaretnam remained disqualified from participating in parliamentary elections until 1991.

After the election, Lee sued Jeyaretnam for slander, alleging that Jeyaretnam implied that he had abetted Teh's suicide and covered up corruption. In August 1990, High Court judge Lai Kew Chai ruled against Jeyaretnam and ordered him to pay Lee damages of S$260,000 with interest on the amount and costs.

1995–2001: Defamation suits from Tamil PAP MPs and others In November 1995, Jeyaretnam and the Workers' Party's central executive committee faced two defamation suits. The first was from five PAP Members of Parliament of Tamil origin, including Foreign Affairs Minister S. Jayakumar. The plaintiffs included Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, and Deputy Prime Ministers Lee Hsien Loong and Tony Tan. The lawsuits came after Tang had accused the plaintiffs of lying when they labelled him as "anti-Christian" and "Chinese chauvinist" during the campaigning period. Jeyaretnam had also said during a rally speech, "Finally, Mr Tang Liang Hong has just placed before me two reports he has made to the police against, you know, Mr Goh Chok Tong and his people." On 20 August 1997, Carman accused Goh of lying and challenged his assertions that Singapore was a democracy. During cross-examination by Carman, Goh likened Jeyaretnam's statement to throwing a Molotov cocktail. However, on further questioning, Goh also stated that "it has been a good year" for him and his standing as a leader had not been injured. The trial generated much public interest, with representatives from the International Commission of Jurists and Amnesty International in attendance as observers.

The Amnesty International representatives who observed the trials said that the lawsuits were politically motivated. Goh commenced bankruptcy proceedings against Jeyaretnam after he failed to pay an instalment, but discontinued them later with S$31,000 still outstanding.

The following day, Kenneth Jeyaretnam called Henson's confession "brave" and said that it "provided prima facie evidence of corruption" in the 1997 lawsuits against his father. He also said that the unauthorised leaks had allowed the plaintiffs to claim aggravated damages, and that his father's lawyer George Carman could have used the unauthorised leaks in his defence.

2001–2007: Bankruptcy On 23 and 25 July 2001, the Court of Appeal dismissed two bankruptcy appeals from Jeyaretnam after he failed to pay instalments on time for the damages arising from the earlier defamation lawsuits. As undischarged bankrupts are barred from serving in Parliament, Jeyaretnam lost his seat as a Non-constituency Member of Parliament on 25 July 2001. He was also disbarred.

To pay off his debts, Jeyaretnam went onto the streets to sell copies of two books he wrote: Make It Right for Singapore and The Hatchet Man of Singapore. The first book contains the texts of some of his parliamentary speeches from 1997 to 1999, while the second describes his trials. In 2003, he told the Associated Press that he had managed to sell as many as 10 copies of The Hatchet Man of Singapore each time he went out, and that the first 2,000 copies had been almost sold out.

In May 2007, Jeyaretnam was discharged from bankruptcy after he paid the remaining sum of S$233,255.78 owed to his creditors.

J B Jeyaretnam Foundation On 5 January 2021, a charity tentatively named "J B Jeyaretnam Foundation" was set up to focus on poverty relief among marginalised groups.

Personal life Jeyaretnam met his wife, Margaret Cynthia Walker, while they were both studying law in London. Walker joined Jeyaretnam in Singapore in 1956 and they married in February 1957. They had two sons, Kenneth Jeyaretnam and Philip Jeyaretnam. Kenneth Jeyaretnam, a former hedge fund manager, was secretary-general of the Reform Party between 2009 and his death in 2026. Philip Jeyaretnam, a Senior Counsel, has been a judge of the Supreme Court since 2021 and was the president of the Law Society from 2004 to 2007.

Death Jeyaretnam was rushed to Tan Tock Seng Hospital in the early morning of 30 September 2008 after he complained that he had difficulties breathing. The doctors were unable to revive him

In media In 2001, three lecturers from Ngee Ann Polytechnic made a 15-minute documentary about Jeyaretnam after they met him while he was selling books on the streets. At the time, they did not know that he was a prominent opposition politician, and had not obtained official approval from Ngee Ann Polytechnic to make the documentary. The film was going to be screened at the Singapore International Film Festival in April 2002. However, the documentary was in violation of the Films Act, which bans the making, distribution and showing of films containing "wholly or partly either partisan or biased references to or comments on any political matter." As a result, it was withdrawn from the film festival and the three lecturers apologised.