Thirteen death-row inmates whose private letters were forwarded by prison officials to the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) have filed a civil case against the Attorney-General.
They are asking the High Court to declare that the Attorney-General and Singapore Prison Service (SPS) acted unlawfully - the former by requesting prisoners' letters and the latter by disclosing them.
They want the court to order the Attorney-General to stop making requests for copies of their correspondence and to order SPS to stop forwarding the correspondence.
Six plaintiffs are seeking damages for breach of confidence and are asking the court to order the destruction of the forwarded copies of their letters. Three are seeking nominal damages for copyright infringement.
The plaintiffs, most of whom are drug offenders, include former policeman Iskandar Rahmat, who was convicted of the murders of a businessman and his son in Kovan in 2013.
The legal action was filed last Friday by their lawyer M. Ravi.
The case arose out of proceedings involving two of the inmates who were seeking to stay their executions. One of them complained that his letters to his lawyers and family had been forwarded.
Last August, the Court of Appeal ruled that prison regulations did not permit the SPS to forward inmates' correspondence to the AGC. However, the court accepted that the forwarding of the letters was due to an oversight.
After the ruling, 22 death-row inmates who believed their letters may have been forwarded applied to get more information before deciding whether or not to launch legal action.
They wanted copies of the forwarded letters and information such as the identities of the individuals who made the requests and those who responded.
The application was dismissed by the High Court in March. It emerged that only 13 of the 22 inmates had their letters forwarded.
The judge added that the Attorney-General had voluntarily disclosed all the correspondence received from the SPS and this was sufficient for the inmates to mount their claims.
An AGC spokesman told The Straits Times: "As the case is before the court, we are unable to comment further."
