Law graduate who plagiarised in open-book exam and lied about it called to the Bar

[The_King]

SIINGAPORE: A law graduate who “copied and pasted” from a sample essay in an open-book exam four years ago and lied about it during a subsequent inquiry was admitted to the Bar after a five-month deferment on her application.

In the grounds of decision released on Friday (Mar 8), Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said he was satisfied that Ms Stasia Ong Pei Qi had “sufficiently demonstrated that she had learned from her past misconduct”.

 

This was also in light of the fact that Ms Ong, who was a student at National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Law, had made voluntary disclosures of her misconduct.

In April 2020, during the second semester of her second year, Ms Ong sat for an open-book examination accounting for 70 per cent of the module’s grade. For one of the essay questions, she “copied and pasted" some text from the sample essay of a student who was her senior.

A month later, the university convened an inquiry after realising that Ms Ong’s answer to the essay question had substantial similarities to three other students' answers.

When questioned, Ms Ong said she had been working on her draft exam answer on two separate Microsoft Word documents.

According to her, one document contained the sample essay with slight amendments, while the other contained a copy of the same sample essay which she was “working to amend afresh”. She said she submitted the "wrong" document", which was the one with slight amendments.

 

 

“This therefore implied that the applicant had prepared a separate document which she had substantially amended and which did not bear substantial similarities to the answers submitted by the three other students. In truth, there was no such document,” said Chief Justice Menon.

“Accordingly, when the applicant made the statement that that she had ‘accidentally’ submitted the ‘wrong’ document, this was an untrue statement.”

NUS was unaware of the "untrue statement". But it found her to have committed the academic offence of plagiarism, and awarded her zero marks for the question.

She subsequently completed her undergraduate studies without any further incident.

But in 2023, when Ms Ong filed her application for admission to the Bar, she revealed that not only did she plagiarise, she had also lied during the 2020 inquiry.

 

 

Earlier that year, she had confessed to an NUS staff member about the false statement she had made during the inquiry, prompting the university to revise her grade for the affected module downwards from “C” to “D”. A letter of warning was also issued.

Following her application, both the Attorney-General and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education took the position that the Ms Ong was "not a fit and proper person to be admitted to the Bar at that point in time and sought a period of deferment of five months to allow the applicant to reflect on her actions".

The Law Society of Singapore, however, did not object to her application being dealt with at that time, without the need for any deferment.

Ms Ong agreed to the deferment.

The deferment period ended on Jan 20, 2024, and the matter was then restored for hearing. None of the stakeholders objected to the application.

 

"RIGHT PAST WRONGS"                                    

Defending her application, Ms Ong said she had accepted that she had fallen short of the conduct expected of one aspiring to be admitted to the Bar.

However, in the three years since her plagiarism, she has had a clean record in NUS, and engaged in pro bono work during a stint at a law firm.

The Attorney-General no longer objected, acknowledging that she was willing to take responsibility for her mistakes, as she voluntarily disclosed her plagiarism and dishonest statement.

The Singapore Institute of Legal Education also lifted its objection, stating that it was satisfied that Ms Ong had sufficiently reflected on her wrongdoing. 

The Law Society of Singapore noted that she had been transparent about her misconduct, and that she had sufficiently remedied her misconduct through her voluntary disclosure.

Chief Justice Menon said Ms Ong’s voluntary disclosures “reflected her willingness to right past wrongs and represented a very significant step in her rehabilitation”.

While her misconduct was serious, he found it "most encouraging that the applicant, of her own accord, made full disclosure of her misconduct in her affidavit in support of her admission application". This showed "her genuine desire to come clean and to make a fresh start on the right footing".

He said that if it were not for Ms Ong coming clean, neither NUS nor the stakeholders would have uncovered her untrue statement made during the inquiry. 

"She disclosed the fact of her having committed the academic offence notwithstanding that it had been filed as an internal disciplinary record within NUS,” said Chief Justice Menon.

"And, the applicant went even further by disclosing both to the university and to the stakeholders that she had made the untrue statement years earlier in the course of the inquiry."

Her "candour and courage" in owning up to her mistakes were also "very good signs of reform". 

“I was satisfied that the applicant was a fit and proper person to be admitted and I duly enrolled her and welcomed her to the Bar,” he added.

[noobmaster]

is she chio?

[DynamiteZerg]

All animals are equal. Some more equal than others.