NUS professor Ben Leong to head new NGO that helps victims of frivolous lawsuits

Associate professor Ben Leong, who teaches computer science at the National University of Singapore (NUS), announced on Feb. 9 that he will head a new NGO dedicated to protecting victims of frivolous lawsuits.

The NGO, called Lionheart Advocates, has a war chest of about S$700,000. Most of that money is in the form of Bitcoins donated by a former student.

Leong said that he has worked out a partnership with senior counsel Thio Shen Yi and his team at TSMP Law Corporation, and together, they have started disbursing funds to several individuals who were threatened by lawsuits.

"Shen Yi and I both believe in our legal system. We will not stand idly by when unscrupulous individuals try to abuse the legal system to make money out of innocent victims.

It has been a real honour and privilege to work alongside a former Law Society President and a man whose name literally means "Justice" (正义)."

Lionheart Advocates will work only with those who have been threatened with a lawsuit by a litigant-in-person, meaning there is no lawyer involved.

"Why do we only work with cases with litigants in person? Because if you are threatened with a lawsuit that involves a lawyer and you are aggrieved, you can complain to Law Society. Against a litigant in person, you would literally have no recourse."

Leong also gave the assurance that the NGO's work will have no impact on legitimate disputes.

Leong will hold the post of President in Lionheart Advocates.

In his post, he thanked his team who has been "working tirelessly these last few weeks to set up the NGO".

He chose to keep the team unnamed for now to protect them from online harassment.

Leong confirmed that he has received a lawsuit from Iris Koh, founder of anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide.

He is currently waiting to receive another lawsuit from Koh's husband, Raymond Ng.

Abuse of legal system

The frivolous use of legal action to intimidate or harass someone is known as lawfare.

One example of lawfare is filing a baseless claim against someone and suing them for financial damages, just so the other party is oppressed.

Someone choosing to engage in lawfare does not even need to win the case — the threat of legal fees and a court battle could be enough to cause significant upset to someone.

Lawfare is considered an abuse of the legal system.

In November, the government amended the Administration of Justice (Protection) Act to make it an offence to abuse court processes.

An example of this would be if someone files fictitious claims for the purpose of delaying criminal proceedings or persistently commences legal action and makes applications that are groundless.

With the amendment, such actions will now amount to contempt of court.

Those who commit contempt of court in the State Courts or other courts can be fined up to S$20,000 or jailed for up to one year.

If the abuse of court proceedings takes place in the High Court or the Court of Appeal, the offender faces a fine of up to S$100,000 and a jail term of up to three years.

Top images: NUS, Canva