CHESTER LEE JUN MING

Facts

Three applicants sought admission as advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court in Admission of Advocates and Solicitors Nos 258, 363 and 370 of 2023. The Attorney-General, the Law Society of Singapore and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education did not object, each being satisfied that the applicants were fit and proper persons. The court heard and allowed the applications on 22 September 2023 and later gave full grounds.

Mr Chester Lee Jun Ming had, in May 2017, recorded two upskirt videos of a woman on public transport. He pleaded guilty in January 2018 to insulting the modesty of a woman, with a second charge taken into consideration, and served a one-month prison term.

Mr Chong Weng Teng, in his final semester at the National University of Singapore, submitted a research paper that reused parts of a paper he had written for another module. An inquiry found this was self-plagiarism under the university's rules; he admitted it, apologised and received zero marks, failing the module and taking an extra module to graduate.

Ms Lin Shuang Ju wrote an article on pet trusts that was published in a Singapore Management University student law journal. Mr Andrew B. F. Carnabuci alleged that it plagiarised his article on pet trust protectors in Connecticut, which her article cited twice. The university found some use of others' work without proper attribution, she apologised to the author, who accepted the apology, and the article was later retracted for lack of originality. Her first admission affidavit, affirmed before she was told of the allegation and filed before she met the university, did not mention it; a second affidavit set out the incident.

Issues

1. Whether Mr Lee had reformed his character since his criminal offence so as to be fit for admission.
2. Whether Mr Chong's self-plagiarism reflected a lack of academic integrity or only a lack of diligence.
3. Whether Ms Lin's plagiarism or her first affidavit's omission showed dishonesty or another defect of character.

Holding

Sundaresh Menon CJ allowed all three applications for admission, being satisfied that each applicant was a fit and proper person in terms of character.

Reasoning

The court restated that, where competence is not in issue, the inquiry is into character, looking at the misconduct, conduct during investigations, disclosure, remorse and rehabilitation; the question is reform, not whether the applicant has been punished enough.

For Mr Lee, the offence was serious, as sexual offences usually signal unfitness. But six years had passed. He cooperated and admitted the offence at once, kept a clean record, worked full-time, completed law school and his training, had credible character references from people who knew of the offence, and disclosed it fully without downplaying it. The court did not wholly accept the Attorney-General's submission that his punishment was irrelevant: there should be no social accounting, but punishment can aid rehabilitation, and together with his clean record it supported a finding of reform.

For Mr Chong, the court accepted, as the stakeholders had, that he did not know reusing his own work was forbidden. Unlike passing off others' work, as in Suria Shaik, reusing one's own work was not an obviously fundamental breach, so it reflected a lack of diligence rather than integrity. Carelessness does not invariably show a character flaw unless it reveals complete disregard of the applicable standards, and his prompt admission, acceptance of a heavy penalty and full disclosure showed it did not.

For Ms Lin, there was no attempt to conceal her source: she cited the article and her title echoed it. The deeper problem was a misunderstanding of what originality an academic article requires. Her apology was genuine, and her first affidavit was not a dishonest concealment, since she then lacked details and made full disclosure once the university's inquiry ended.

From the judgment