Re Gabriel Silas Tang Rafferty

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sundaresh Menon CJ
• Judgment Date: 22 March 2024
• Docket Number: Admission of Advocates and Solicitors No 224 of 2022
• Court: High Court (Singapore)

Re Gabriel Silas Tang Rafferty

[2024] SGHC 82

Sundaresh Menon CJ

Admission of Advocates and Solicitors No 224 of 2022

General Division of the High Court

Legal Profession — Admission — Applicant committing two incidents of plagiarism whilst first year juris doctor law student at university — Applicant found to have failed to disclose first incident of plagiarism in his admission affidavit — Applicant found to have under-declared extent of plagiarism in his admission affidavits — Applicant not fit and proper person to be admitted to Singapore Bar — Whether applicant should be permitted to withdraw his application to be admitted to Singapore Bar or whether application should be dismissed — Conditions to be imposed on applicant upon dismissal of application — Considerations relevant for determining suitable deferment period

Held, dismissing the Application:

General principles

(1) Where the court assessed that an applicant was not yet a fit and proper person in terms of his character for admission to the Bar, it might adjourn the matter or permit the applicant concerned to withdraw his application for admission, or dismiss the application. The signalling of each of these orders was fundamentally different. Where the court considered that a relatively short period of deferment was sufficient, it might adjourn the matter. If a longer period was thought appropriate, and the court was at the least satisfied that the applicant had displayed discernible signs of insight into his ethical issues, it might permit the withdrawal of the admission application. However, where the applicant's character defects were so dire and it was evident that the applicant had not even commenced the journey towards confronting those issues, it would be only appropriate to dismiss the admission application. This was in order to convey the urgency with which the applicant ought to confront his need for reform: at [3] and [49] to [51].

(2) In cases where the original misconduct had taken place a significant time prior to the applicant's admission application, the substantial lapse of time afforded the court the opportunity to gauge how the applicant had 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 (or lack of candour) in his dealings with the court and the respective stakeholders, especially where this took place in the context of the admission application, assumed particular importance in the court's assessment of the applicant's fitness to be called to the Bar: at [36] and [37].

(3) An applicant for admission as an advocate and solicitor owed an overriding duty of candour to the court and the stakeholders in the admission process. A deliberate lack of candour in the admission process constituted a breach of one's duty to the court and was wholly incompatible with the applicant's fitness to be called to the Bar. It struck at the very heart of the question of whether the applicant could be relied upon to ably serve in the administration of justice: at [38] and [39].

(4) The court had the inherent power to impose the appropriate conditions upon dismissal of an admission application to achieve a just outcome. In this regard, the imposition of a suitable deferment period ought to be reflective of the time which the applicant would, realistically speaking, need in order to work through his character issues. The length of the period would depend on all the circumstances, including the nature of the wrongdoing, what that wrongdoing informed 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 had done wrong, and his pathway to reform and rehabilitation. Prior cases ought not be viewed in a mechanical fashion as precedents: at [54], [58] and [60].

Application to the facts

(5) 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. The Applicant chose not to disclose the First Incident because he did not think his academic misconduct therein would be uncovered. The Applicant's failure to disclose the First Incident therefore 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: at [21], [22], [25] and [41].

(6) 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 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].

(7) The Applicant was presently not a fit and proper person for admission. Both the First Incident and the Second Incident involved dishonesty on the Applicant's part. 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 had much in the way of life experiences and would ordinarily be expected to display a measure of maturity and judgment which was not evident: at [43] and [45] to [47].

(8) Taking these considerations together, it was inappropriate to permit the Applicant to withdraw his Application. The Applicant's conduct engaged a pattern of repeated failings persisting over a period of five years, and culminated at the very threshold of the Application 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].

(9) The court imposed the condition upon dismissal of the Application that the Applicant was 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 “Deferment Condition”). The Applicant's present character deficits were so dire and his lack of insight so acute, that a substantial period of deferment of five years was minimally required for him to sufficiently reform himself, should he continue to desire admission to the Bar: at [59], [61] and [62].

[Observation: It was an open question whether the court's inherent power to impose the Deferment Condition was limited to an imposition in relation to any prospective application for admission to practise in Singapore and would not be capable of being extended in relation to other jurisdictions. The position where the court imposed such condition upon dismissal of the admission application, might be contrasted with that where leave was granted to withdraw such an application on terms which included the applicant's voluntary undertaking to the court not to bring a similar application elsewhere: at [59].]

Case(s) referred to

Law Society of Singapore v Chia Choon Yang[2018] 5 SLR 1068 (refd)

Law Society of Singapore v Ravindra Samuel[1999] 1 SLR(R) 266; [1999] 1 SLR 696 (refd)

Lee Jun Ming Chester, Re[2023] SGHC 282 (refd)

Monisha Devaraj, Re[2022] 5 SLR 638 (refd)

Ong Pei Qi Stasia, Re[2024] SGHC 61 (refd)

Public Trustee v By Products Traders Pte Ltd[2005] 3 SLR(R) 449; [2005] 3 SLR 449 (refd)

Suria Shaik Aziz, Re[2023] 5 SLR 1272 (folld)

Tay Jie Qi, Re[2023] 4 SLR 1258 (refd)

Tay Quan Li Leon, Re[2022] 5 SLR 896 (folld)

Wong Wai Loong Sean, Re[2023] 4 SLR 541 (folld)

Facts

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 (“AG”), the Law Society of Singapore and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education (collectively, the “Stakeholders”) objected to the Application. 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 Juris Doctor law student at the Singapore Management University (“SMU”) in early 2019. In the first incident (“First Incident”), which occurred in February 2019, the Applicant had obtained the work product of a classmate and copied many portions of her work in the graded written assignment he eventually submitted (the “Assignment”). For this misconduct, the Applicant received a failing grade for the Assignment, which constituted 5% of his course grade for the relevant module. He was also counselled for the misconduct and promised to learn from the incident. According to the Applicant, he received certain verbal assurances from two members of the SMU faculty (the “Verbal Assurances”) 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 second incident (“Second Incident”) occurred shortly thereafter, in March 2019. The Applicant submitted a graded research paper (the “CLS Research Paper”) containing significant portions which were found to have been plagiarised from multiple sources without proper attribution, and the Applicant was found to have committed the academic offence of plagiarism. The extent of the Applicant's plagiarism was substantial, with more portions of the CLS Research Paper that had been plagiarised than not. When confronted, the Applicant's explanation seemed to suggest that he had not known of the need to cite his sources, but this was directly contradicted by the selective...