Lee Hsien Loong v Leong Sze Hian [2021] SGHC 66 of our constitution; and the law of defamation is increasingly to be seen as an aspect of it. It is no more than an ordinary incident of the common law’s incremental method that familiar notions such as abuse of process should be fashioned for its service. 73 What is immediately apparent from Lait is the observation that the balance to be struck between public interest and private rights is to be seen as a function of the constitution. This is a significant distinction which again is not applicable in the Singapore context – the United Kingdom’s unwritten constitution does not operate in quite the same manner that Singapore’s Constitution does. For one, Singapore’s Constitution is expressly stated as being the supreme law of the land, whereas the United Kingdom’s common law and/or unwritten constitution does not expressly provide so. 74 Moreover, Lait makes clear the reliance Jameel places on the requirement of proportionality under the English CPR, as well as the Article 10 right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. Once again, these instruments do not have direct cognates in Singapore, even if some of the principles invoked may, depending on the facts, be applicable. What is more significant, however, is that there is clear Court of Appeal authority in Review Publishing (at [269] to [271]) indicating that it is for Parliament to strike the balance between freedom of expression and the constraints placed upon it by the law of defamation. My analysis above from [54] to [57] would thus apply even if I were amenable to the exhortation in Lait that the balance to be struck between public interest and private right is “a function of our constitution”. 75 In sum, what can be gleaned from the decision in Lait is that the substantive underlying factors behind the approach adopted in England include instruments which have no precise equivalent in Singapore. Lait also involved 41