The independent blog, which calls itself “the voice of Singaporeans for Singapore”, has unsurprisingly lost its suit against the Singapore government.
They are now crowdfunding for legal costs.
Discriminatory Measures Towards Unvaccinated People
According to TR Emeritus’ website, the Class Action suit was primarily due to COVID-19 discriminatory measures that allowed employers to terminate non-fully vaccinated employees.
This Class Action suit was initiated by a group of unvaccinated litigants. TR Emeritus helped to coordinate it.
They noted how only 300 people out of the millions of people in Singapore were exempted from vaccination due to medical histories. This meant that such discriminatory measures affected about 132,000 non-fully vaccinated adults.
Additionally, they called attention to how that number may be increasing daily, as people may not have taken their booster shots to maintain their status as fully vaccinated.
The litigants also called out the government’s main reason for these measures, which was to not stress the healthcare system. They argued that this was mathematically flawed, as the ratios for deaths and ICU cases indicated the opposite.
AGC’s Argument and Judgement
The Attorney-General’s Chamber (AGC) argued that the Ministry of Manpower’s allowing of employers to fire non-fully vaccinated employees was a mere advisory. They held the stance that it was not a directive.
Basically saying that it was just a suggestion and not an order lah, so they can’t be held responsible.
Additionally, the judgement described the statistics presented by the litigants as “shaky”. The litigants countered it by saying that the statistics were derived from data published on the Ministry of Health’s website.
It’s like telling your friend that their apple pie is not nice, then they say they bought the sweetest apples for it. But the real issue is their method of baking the pie.
High Court Award AGC $22,400
TR Emeritus received information on 26 July that the High Court has awarded the AGC costs and disbursements of $22,400 in total.
The litigants did submit to the court that no costs should be awarded, since this was a matter of public interests and great constitutional importance. However, it is clear that the court was not on their side.
TR Emeritus Now Crowdfunding
Since TR Emeritus was the coordinator for this Class Action suit, they felt that they should help lighten the burden on the litigants.
As such, they have revised their crowdfunding priorities, which was previously centred upon helping one of their members raise money for their medical bills.
Now, they are combining the medical fund request and the legal costs request into one crowdfunding goal of $50,000.
The first $20,000 raised will be fully used to settle the legal costs, while the rest of the money will be directed toward the medical fund.
The crowdfunding request will end on 1 September.
If you wish to donate, you can check out the various methods of donation on their website.
Featured Image: Facebook (TR Emeritus)