GABRIEL SILAS TANG RAFFERTY

Outcome: Menon CJ dismisses the applicant’s application for admission as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore.

•  This was the first case in which the court considered that permitting the applicant to withdraw his admission application would be an inadequate response to the gravity of the applicant’s present character deficit, and therefore dismissed the admission application instead.

•  An applicant for admission as an Advocate and Solicitor owes an overriding duty of candour to the court and the stakeholders in the admission process. Depending on its nature and extent, an applicant’s lack of candour in the admission process, in particular one that suggests an attempt to deceive the

•  wholly incompatible with the applicant’s fitness to be called to the Bar.

•  The imposition of a suitable deferment period upon dismissal of an admission application is not with a view to punish the applicant. The period ought to be reflective of the time which the applicant will, realistically speaking, need in order to work through his character issues, should he continue to desire admission to the Bar. The length of the period will depend on all the circumstances. Prior cases ought not to be viewed in a mechanical fashion as precedents.

1 This was an application (“Application”) by the applicant (“Applicant”) seeking admission as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore. The Attorney-General, the Law Society of Singapore and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education (collectively, the “Stakeholders”) objected to the Application.

2 The Applicant was 47 years old. The questions as to the Applicant’s fitness of character for admission to the Bar, arose from two incidents of academic misconduct which the Applicant had committed as a first-year student in the Juris Doctor law programme at the Singapore Management University (“SMU”), in early 2019.

3 The first incident (“First Incident”) occurred in February 2019. For his module entitled “Legal Research and Writing 2” (“LRW2 Module”), the Applicant was required to submit a written assignment (the “Assignment”) which constituted 5% of his course grade for the LRW2 Module. The Applicant declared on the last page of his submission for the Assignment that he had abided by SMU’s Code of Academic Integrity. However, he had in fact obtained the work product of a classmate and copied many portions of her work in the assignment he eventually submitted. There was no suggestion that this was inadvertent. The plagiarism came to light on 12 February 2019 and the Applicant claimed that he had readily admitted to SMU’s Ms Ong Ee Ing (“Ms Ong”) that he had based a large portion of his work from his classmate’s assignment. The Applicant also told Ms Ong that he would learn from the incident and solemnly promised that the misconduct would not happen again. For his misconduct in the First Incident, the Applicant received a failing grade for the Assignment and was counselled by Ms Ong that more severe consequences would follow if he were to repeat the misconduct.

4 According to the Applicant, he received certain verbal assurances from Ms Ong and SMU’s Professor Maartje de Visser (“Prof de Visser”), then the director of the Juris Doctor programme in SMU, that the First Incident would be kept confidential owing to the privacy concerns surrounding the Applicant’s personal circumstances at the time of the First Incident (the “Verbal Assurances”).

5 The second incident (“Second Incident”) occurred shortly thereafter, in March 2019. In the same semester, for his module entitled “Comparative Legal Systems” (“CLS Module”), taught by Prof de Visser, the Applicant submitted a graded research paper on 14 March 2019 (“CLS Research Paper”). After an inquiry, significant portions of the CLS Research Paper were found by the SMU’s University Council of Student Conduct to have been plagiarised from multiple sources without proper attribution, and the Applicant was found to have committed the academic offence of plagiarism. When confronted, the Applicant’s explanation seemed to suggest that he had not known of the need to cite his sources. For this misconduct, the Applicant failed the CLS Module and was handed a formal Letter of Reprimand from the university. The Applicant subsequently completed his studies at SMU without further incident.

6 The two incidents of misconduct only formed a part of the story, because the Stakeholders’ objections to the Application also arose out of the Applicant’s conduct during the admission process. To be specific, the Applicant disclosed in his admission affidavit the misconduct in the Second Incident, but wholly failed to disclose the fact of the First Incident until specifically requested to do so by the Attorney-General (“AG”) on 26 June 2023, after the AG had learnt of it following some inquiries. The Applicant’s explanation for his non-disclosure of the First Incident was that he believed the First Incident was confidential based on the Verbal Assurances he had received, leading him to believe that his wrongdoing had been forgiven.

7 In addition to the Applicant’s non-disclosure of the First Incident, it also emerged that the Applicant had not been truthful in the disclosures he made concerning the extent of his plagiarism. On both occasions, the Applicant under-declared the portions of the CLS Research Paper and the Assignment that had been plagiarised.

8 Where the court assesses that an applicant is not yet a fit and proper person in terms of his character for admission to the Bar, it may adjourn the matter or permit the applicant concerned to withdraw his application for admission, or dismiss the application. While the practical effect of these orders may bear similarities, the signalling of each of these orders is fundamentally different. Where the court permits the withdrawal of the admission application, this should be seen as an invitation to the applicant to take the first step in his journey towards rehabilitation by publicly taking responsibility for his wrong. The court must at the least be satisfied that the applicant has displayed discernible signs of insight into his ethical issues. Conversely, where an applicant’s character defects are so dire, a dismissal of the application is called for in order to convey the urgency with which the applicant ought to confront his need for reform. These options are not exhaustive and, in exercising its discretion, the court may alternatively consider adjourning the matter for a period of time, if a relatively short period of deferment is all that is likely to be needed: at [3] and [49]–[50].

9 The failure to disclose the First Incident was a serious failure to disclose a relevant and material fact at the admission stage. The Verbal Assurances could not, by any stretch of the imagination, have meant that the Applicant could not or should not disclose the fact of his misconduct, especially where it was material to his duty of disclosure in the admission process: at [20] and [21].

10 In the circumstances, the Applicant’s failure to disclose the First Incident amounted to dishonesty in the admission process and was an attempt to mislead the court. This struck at the very heart of his fitness for admission. The facts suggested that the Applicant chose not to disclose this relevant fact because he did not think it would be uncovered, given his belief that SMU would not disclose or divulge the matter: at [22], [25] and [41].

11 The Applicant could not provide any satisfactory explanation for the under-declarations in his admission affidavits of the extent of his plagiarism on both occasions. The Applicant’s claim that he could not recall which portions he had plagiarised, obfuscated the fact that this was a straightforward matter of comparing his submitted work against the sources from which he had plagiarised. The relevant portions of under-declaration were hardly generic or insignificant. The Applicant’s under-declarations reflected an unwillingness to come completely clean with the court: at [29], [30] and [42].

12 In cases where the original misconduct had taken place a significant time prior to an applicant’s admission application, the substantial lapse of time affords the court the opportunity to gauge how the applicant has progressed in his reform and rehabilitation in the intervening period, and his understanding of the ethical duties expected of an aspiring Advocate and Solicitor. In this context, the applicant’s candour in his dealings with the court and the respective stakeholders, especially where this takes place in the context of the admission application, may assume particular importance in the court’s assessment of the applicant’s fitness to be called to the Bar: at [36] and [37].

13 An applicant for admission as an Advocate and Solicitor owes an overriding duty of candour to the court and the stakeholders in the admission process. In making the supporting affidavit for admission, the applicant effectively warrants that the court has before it all the necessary information bearing on his or her suitability. A deliberate lack of candour in the admission process constitutes a breach of one’s duty to the court and is also wholly incompatible with the applicant’s fitness to be called to the Bar. It strikes at the very heart of the question of whether the applicant can be relied upon to ably serve in the administration of justice: at [38] and [39].

14 Both the First Incident and the Second Incident involved dishonesty on the Applicant’s part. In relation to the First Incident, the Applicant clearly intended to pass off the portions of his classmate’s work as his own: at [7] and [43].

15 In relation to the Second Incident, the Applicant’s explanation that he had not known or appreciated the need to cite his sources was directly contradicted by the selective and partial citations which the Applicant made in the CLS Research Paper. The extent of the Applicant’s plagiarism was substantial, with more portions of the CLS Research Paper that had been plagiarised than not. The Applicant’s account of his misconduct in his admission affidavits did not confront the true nature and extent of his wrongdoing, and instead sought to downplay his culpability in the Second Incident: at [16]–[18] and [44].

16 The Second Incident took place less than two months after the First Incident occurred and he had been found out, counselled and penalised for it. That the Applicant did not learn from his misconduct in the First Incident and so repeated it, suggested a disturbing degree of recalcitrance: at [12] and [44].

17 In the circumstances, the conclusion to be drawn was that the Applicant was presently not a fit and proper person for admission. The Applicant’s pattern of conduct up until the time of the hearing of his admission application, suggested a continuing lack of insight into the true ethical nature and implications of his actions. These considerations were compounded by the fact that the Applicant was a mature candidate of 47 years of age, who has had much in the way of life experiences and would ordinarily be expected to display a measure of maturity and judgment: at [45]–[47].

18 The Application was dismissed. It was inappropriate to permit the Applicant to withdraw his application for admission. The Applicant’s conduct engaged a pattern of repeated failings persisting over a period of five years and culminated at the very threshold of his application for admission in his attempt to mislead the court and the Stakeholders and his willingness to be less than completely forthright in his dealings with the same: at [52] and [53].

19 The court has the inherent power to impose the appropriate conditions upon dismissal of an admission application to achieve a just outcome. The imposition of a suitable deferment period upon dismissal of an admission application is not with a view to punish the applicant. The period ought to be reflective of the time which the applicant will, realistically speaking, need in order to work through his character issues. The length of the period will depend on all the circumstances, including the nature of the wrongdoing, what that wrongdoing informs the court about the applicant’s character, the length of time between the occasion of the wrongdoing and the present, the applicant’s progress in his journey to come to grips with what he has done wrong, and his pathway to reform and rehabilitation. Prior cases should not be viewed in a mechanical fashion as precedents. It is conceivable that in the appropriate circumstances, the original misconduct that took place some time ago in one case may be objectively more serious than the misconduct that took place in some other case, and yet the court may justifiably decide on the facts and circumstances before it that the applicant has progressed further along in his journey of rehabilitation in the former case than in the latter by the time of the admission application: at [54]–[58] and [60].

20 The court imposed a condition upon dismissal of the Application, that the Applicant is not to bring a fresh application to be admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor in Singapore for a period of not less than five years from the date of the court’s decision. The Applicant’s present character deficits were so dire and his lack of insight so acute, that a substantial period of deferment was minimally required for him to sufficiently reform himself, should he continue to desire admission to the Bar: at [59] and [61]–[62].