[3][4][5][6][7] Jeyaretnam had his first electoral victory in the 1981 by-election in Anson SMC when he won 51.93% of the vote against the PAP's Pang Kim Hin and United People's Front's Harbans Singh,[8] becoming the first opposition politician to be elected into Parliament since Singapore gained independence in 1965.

[9] In 1986, following convictions for making false statements about the Workers' Party's accounts, Jeyaretnam was not only fined and imprisoned for a month, but also lost his parliamentary seat.

After he was disqualified from practising law in 1987, he appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which reversed his disbarment in 1988 and called his conviction "a grievous injustice".

However, Jeyaretnam lost his NCMP seat and left the Workers' Party in 2001 when he was declared bankrupt after failing to keep up with damages from a series of defamation suits against him.

[15][16] An Anglican Christian of Sri Lankan Tamil descent,[1] Jeyaretnam was born in Chankanai, Jaffna while his parents were on leave from Malaya.

[18] Jeyaretnam grew up in Johor and started his formal education in Muar in a French convent where his eldest sister was a student.

In the following 11 years, Jeyaretnam held various positions, including magistrate, district judge, crown counsel, deputy public prosecutor and registrar of the Supreme Court.

[5] Jeyaretnam contested in a three-cornered fight during the 1981 by-election in Anson SMC against Pang Kim Hin of the PAP and Harbans Singh of the United People's Front.

[31] He received a reprimand for not declaring a conflict of interest in an issue he brought up in Parliament which involved a person whom he was representing as a lawyer.

[33][26] Jeyaretnam was fined S$10,000 in 1987 on a complaint that he, as the editor of the Workers' Party's newsletter "The Hammer", had allowed the publication of a distorted report on the committee in December 1986.

[37] In January 1979, Jeyaretnam lost the case and was ordered by High Court judge Frederick Arthur Chua to pay Lee S$130,000 in damages and costs.

The suit had been dismissed by High Court judge Frederick Arthur Chua, who had also ordered the Workers' Party to pay Tay's legal costs amounting to S$14,000.

[37][10][40][41] In early 1984, senior district judge Michael Khoo found Jeyaretnam and Wong guilty of one of the four charges they faced but acquitted them of the other three.

[42][10] On 25 September 1985, Jeyaretnam and Wong were found guilty by a district court and each sentenced to three months' imprisonment, but they appealed against the judgement.

In November 1986, High Court judge Lai Kew Chai dismissed their appeals but reduced their sentences to one month's imprisonment and fined them S$5,000 each.

In October 1987, a panel of three judges, including Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin, struck Jeyaretnam off the roll of advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court, barring him from practising law in Singapore.

In October 1988, following an appeal from Jeyaretnam, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) reversed his disbarment,[44] noting in their judgement: 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.

However, the President, constitutionally bound to act in accordance with the Cabinet's advice,[45] denied the request, so Jeyaretnam remained disqualified from participating in parliamentary elections until 1991.

[10] Although Jeyaretnam was barred from contesting in the 1988 general election due to his convictions in 1986, he still participated in the Workers' Party's rallies during the campaigning period.

In one rally speech, he questioned if the PAP government had carried out an inquiry into the death of former National Development Minister Teh Cheang Wan, who had committed suicide in December 1986 by overdosing while he was being investigated for corruption.

In August 1990, High Court judge Lai Kew Chai ruled against Jeyaretnam and ordered him to pay Lee damages of S$260,000 with interest on the amount and costs.

The lawsuits came after an article published in the Workers' Party's newsletter "The Hammer" implied that the plaintiffs' efforts to promote the Tamil language in Singapore had not been sincere enough.

[12][48] In September 1997, Jeyaretnam and the Workers' Party agreed to pay S$200,000 in damages and costs to the five PAP Members of Parliament by six instalments.

[48] On 30 November 1998, the High Court ordered Jeyaretnam and the Workers' Party to pay S$265,000 in damages and costs to ten plaintiffs in the second lawsuit.

"[50][12]During the trial, which started on 18 August 1997, Jeyaretnam and Goh were represented by Queen's Counsels George Carman and Thomas Shields respectively.

[12] The judge also said Goh should pay 40% as the case was "overstated" and criticised the other plaintiffs' lawyers for not consolidating their lawsuits to reduce legal costs.

After Tang and Jeyaretnam were sued for defamation, Henson and The New Paper editor P. N. Balji realised that they had inadvertently spread the allegedly defamatory words to more people, meaning that the plaintiffs could have sought more damages if they had won the lawsuits.

[56] The following day, Kenneth Jeyaretnam called Henson's confession "brave" and said that it "provided prima facie evidence of corruption" in the 1997 lawsuits against his father.

[61] On 5 January 2021, a charity tentatively named "J B Jeyaretnam Foundation" was set up to focus on poverty relief among marginalised groups.

[63] Jeyaretnam was rushed to Tan Tock Seng Hospital in the early morning of 30 September 2008 after he complained that he had difficulties breathing.