The government of Singapore attempted to rid itself of Mr. Jeyaretnam by having him charged with offences, which the Privy Counsel ultimately deemed to be an injustice.  The Privy Council cleared Mr. Jeyaretnam’s reputation, and restored him to the rolls in order to be able to practice law.  The government refused to acknowledge the deep disquiet expressed by the privy counsel and subsequently changed the law so that there would no longer be appeals to the Privy Counsel. 

Following his re-election in 1984, Mr. Jeyaretnam was charged with alleged financial impropriety related to the collection of party funds.  In 1986, he was acquitted by a District Court of all charges save one.  The prosecution appealed the acquittal and the then Chief Justice allowed the appeal, with the direction that a re-trial be heard by a District Court.  At re-trial, Mr. Jeyaretnam was found guilty and sentenced to three months in jail, which was reduced by the High Court but with the addition of a S$5,000 fine.  The imposition of a fine of over S$2,000 resulted in the automatic disqualification of Mr. Jeyaretnam as a Member of Parliament and the conviction also triggered a Law Society hearing that resulted in him being disbarred.

Mr. Jeyaretnam's earlier application for the re-trial to be heard before the High Court rather than a District Court, which would have allowed any subsequent appeal to be pursued up to Singapore's then highest court, the Privy Council located in London, had been refused. 

Although his appeal to the Privy Council was limited to the issue of his disbarment the Privy Council Lords examined the fairness of the criminal trial and concluded that Jeyaretnam and co-accused Wong were not guilty of the offences for which they had been convicted, imprisoned and punished.  The Lordships concluded that Jeyaretnam and Wong were innocent. 

‘Their Lordships have to record their deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgements the appellant and his co-accused Wong have suffered a grievous injustice. They have been fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for offences of which they were not guilty. The appellant, in addition, has been deprived of his seat in Parliament and disqualified for a year from practising his profession. Their Lordships order restores him to the roll of advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Singapore, but, because of the course taken by the criminal proceedings, their Lordships have no power to right the other wrongs which the appellant and Wong have suffered. Their only prospect of redress, their Lordships understand, will be by way of petition for pardon to the President of the Republic of Singapore.”

The government refused to heed the Privy Council's advice to facilitate a pardon for Mr.  Jeyaretnam on the grounds that the criminal convictions had not been the subject of the Privy Council appeal.  Mr. Jeyaretnam was subsequently re-instated as a lawyer, but prevented from standing again for election until 1997, when he ran and was returned as a non-constituency member of parliament.  

Shortly after the 1997 election Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and other senior PAP members filed suits against J.B. Jeyaretnam alleging that he had defamed them at an election rally by saying the words, "And finally, Mr. Tang Liang Hong has just placed before me two reports he has made to the police against, you know, Mr. Goh Chok Tong and his people".

Tang Liang Hong, a Workers' Party parliamentary candidate, had filed a police report alleging that the PAP leadership had defamed him during the campaign by publicly labelling him an "anti-Christian, Chinese chauvinist".  The PAP leaders listed in the police reports, alleged that they had been defamed by Tang Liang Hong through the reports, sued and were awarded damages of S$8.08 million (US$5.6 million) reduced on appeal to S$4.53 million (US$ 2.3 million). Tang Liang Hong was subsequently declared bankrupt.

In his suit against Mr. Jeyaretnam, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was awarded S$20,000 increased on his appeal to S$100,000 plus full costs.  Amnesty International representatives observed both trial and appeal and expressed concerns that the suits against Mr. Jeyaretnam were politically motivated.  In 1998, Goh Chok Tong began bankruptcy proceedings against Mr. Jeyaretnam but later agreed to accept payment of the damages awarded to him in instalments. Bankruptcy proceedings resumed when Mr. Jeyaretnam failed to meet an instalment, but the Prime Minister discontinued them with S$31,000 remaining unpaid.  In December 2000, Goh Chok Tong's co-plaintiffs, including Lee Kuan Yew and other PAP members, took steps to revive their 1997 suits, which had not yet come before the courts.  It is the dismissal of Mr. Jeyaretnam's application to dismiss these libel actions for failure to proceed for a period of over three years that was the subject of one of the appeals before the Court of Appeal in July 2001.

A 1995 article in the Workers' Party newspaper alleged that an event called the “Tamil Language Week”' was an ineffective means of advancing the Tamil language and that a number of those involved were political opportunists beholden to the government.  The article resulted in two parallel libel suits against the author of the article, J.B. Jeyaretnam as editor and members of the Workers' Party’s central committee.  The article was in Tamil, Mr. Jeyaretnam’s native tongue from childhood, but by 1995 he was no longer fluent in that language.

In the first suit, involving Minister of Foreign Affairs S. Jayakumar and four other PAP parliamentarians, the defendants agreed to apologise publicly and to pay S$200,000 in damages. In February 1998, after paying S$100,000 in three instalments, the defendants were unable to make further payments and the plaintiffs did not pursue the matter at that time.

The second suit was lodged by Indra Krishnan and nine other members of the 'Tamil Language Week' organising committee, one of whom is now a PAP Member of Parliament. Although the author admitted that he was wholly responsible for the article, the High Court awarded the ten plaintiffs S$265,000 damages and S$250,000 costs jointly against all the defendants. Two of the plaintiffs subsequently began bankruptcy proceedings against Mr. Jeyaretnam alone, but were paid off in instalments.  Subsequently, the other eight plaintiffs also began bankruptcy proceedings against Mr. Jeyaretnam, and one day after Mr. Jeyaretnam failed to pay an agreed instalment in January 2001, he was declared bankrupt. On 16 July 2001, Mr. Jeyaretnam offered to pay off the remaining damages in three further instalments. Mr. Jeyaretnam's final appeal against this bankruptcy order was heard before the Court of Appeal July 23, 2001.  Because Mr. Jeyaretnam was confirmed bankrupt, he was automatically removed from parliament.

A contributory factor in Mr. Jeyaretnam's failure to pay the agreed instalment to Indra Krishnan and her fellow plaintiffs by one day in January 2001 was the unexpected petition by Minister of Foreign Affairs S. Jayakumar and the four other PAP plaintiffs. After making no demands since receiving a third instalment towards their S$200,000 award in 1998, these plaintiffs applied successfully to the courts in December 2000 to seize a sum of S$66,600 awarded to J.B. Jeyaretnam that month against a lawyer who owed him costs. Mr. Jeyaretnam intended to use that money to meet his agreed January repayment. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and his fellow plaintiffs pursued the balance of payments of their damage award against Mr. Jeyaretnam alone and not against the other Workers' Party defendants.