The High Court has dismissed an application by lawyer M Ravi to have presidential candidate Tharman Shanmugaratnam disqualified from the presidential election.

Ordered to pay costs of S$6,000

The outcome was delivered on Aug. 31.

In a Facebook video that he filmed prior to entering the Supreme court for the hearing regarding his application, Ravi revealed that he was accompanied by the founder of Healing the Divide, Iris Koh.

Ravi was also ordered to pay costs to the Attorney-General's Chambers.

The lawyer revealed in a Facebook post calling for donations that these costs came up to S$6,000.

The 53-year-old lawyer was handed a five-year suspension earlier this year for misconduct.

Why did he file such an application against Tharman?

On Aug. 29, Ravi went live on Facebook outside the Supreme Court building to talk about his filing.

"I just filed an application in the Supreme Court Registry for a declaration that Tharman Shanmugaratnam has breached several articles of the Constitution, including Article 19, that disallow a president (sic) who has a criminal conviction to stand for election."

He stated that Tharman has been previously fined for "disclosing state secrets", which should disqualify him from the presidential race.

Tharman was convicted under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) in 1994 for his negligence in allowing sensitive government data to be communicated to the media.

Under Article 45(1)(e) of the Constitution, a person who has been convicted of an offence by a court of law in Singapore or Malaysia and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of not less than one year, or to a fine of not less than S$10,000 and has not received a free pardon cannot contest in the general election or become a Member of Parliament.

Ravi went on to mention Article 27 about the oath of allegiance to Singapore.

He claimed Tharman has not renounced and is "determined not to renounce" his international appointments.

Ravi appears to be referring to Tharman's post on the World Economic Forum's (WEF) board of trustees.

He shared photos of his filings in another Facebook post.

https://mothership.sg/2023/08/m-ravi-file-supreme-court-tharman-disqualify/

Top left image via M Ravi/Facebook, right photo via Wikimedia Commons