Lee Hsien Loong v Leong Sze Hian [2021] SGHC 66 Appeal decision of Wisniewski v Central Manchester Health Authority [1998] PIQR P324 at 340, that: (1) In certain circumstances a court may be entitled to draw adverse inferences from the absence or silence of a witness who might be expected to have material evidence to give on an issue in an action. (2) If a court is willing to draw such inferences, they may go to strengthen the evidence adduced on that issue by the other party or to weaken the evidence, if any, adduced by the party who might reasonably have been expected to call the witness. (3) There must, however, have been some evidence, however weak, adduced by the former on the matter in question before the court is entitled to draw the desired inference: in other words, there must be a case to answer on that issue. (4) If the reason for the witness’s absence or silence satisfies the court, then no such adverse inference may be drawn. If, on the other hand, there is some credible explanation given, even if it [is] not wholly satisfactory, the potentially detrimental effect of his/her absence or silence may be reduced or nullified. [Emphasis original from Thio Keng Poon] Furthermore, an adverse inference will not be drawn immediately against the defendants simply because they chose to submit that there was no case to answer: Lim Eng Hock Peter v Lin Jian Wei and another [2009] 2 SLR(R) 1004 (“Lim Eng Hock Peter (HC)”) at [209]. 22 In this case, the plaintiff contends that an adverse inference may be drawn against a defendant who has made a submission of no case to answer if there is no credible explanation for his silence. The defendant did not appear to contest this proposition in principle. Rather, the crux of the defendant’s response in this regard was twofold: that (a) the defendant had good reason to not provide evidence, and (b) in any event, any adverse inference could only go towards the issue of whether the defendant was maliciously motivated, since that was the only issue of fact on which the defendant’s evidence might have been of 10