Lee Hsien Loong v Leong Sze Hian [2021] SGHC 66 Whether the boundaries of defamation should take into account alternative regimes 48 An issue that I asked the parties to address me on was whether the enactment of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Act 19 of 2019) (“POFMA”), potentially providing an alternative cause of action, should have any effect on defamation law. The defendant asserts that the POFMA has a direct and significant impact on defamation in that in circumstances where the facts of a case might be caught by the provisions of the POFMA, it should not be open to an individual to be able to bypass the Act and sue in defamation. The defendant contends that this would deny a citizen the protections built into the POFMA, and potentially upset the balance struck by Parliament in an act of “constitutional heresy”.23 By contrast, the plaintiff argues that the POFMA is separate from and has not changed the law of defamation in Singapore. 49 I am satisfied that the POFMA does not alter the law of defamation in Singapore. Given the stated purpose of the POFMA, and in particular the clear indication in the Ministerial speeches during the Second Reading of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill that the Act was not intended to alter the law of defamation, I did not see how the defendant’s position on the POFMA was at all tenable. Moreover, there was a marked absence of any provisions that could be interpreted as effecting the change in the law which the defendant asserted. 50 First, and in contradistinction to defamation, the POFMA is concerned with falsehood rather than the harm caused to reputation as such. The preamble to the POFMA describes it as “[a]n Act to prevent the electronic communication 23 DCS at [84]. 26