An overseas law graduate’s application to be admitted to the Singapore Bar was dismissed by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon due to multiple instances of plagiarism and dishonesty.
The 28-year-old woman was also barred from making a fresh application for five years.
Repeated Academic Dishonesty Leads to Bar Admission Rejection
The woman failed to disclose that she was found to have collaborated with another candidate, identified only as Ms Tan, on a paper for the Bar exam in 2020.
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Their answer scripts were flagged with 80 per cent similarity and 32 blocks of matching text.
The final answer script submitted by the woman contained a significantly fuller answer to one question compared with the three submitted earlier.
The Singapore Institute of Legal Education (Sile) concluded that she had collaborated with Ms Tan, though she initially disagreed with this finding.
Additionally, while studying at a university in Britain, the woman was found to have committed some form of plagiarism in three separate incidents between 2018 and 2019.
On two occasions in 2018, her failure to attribute material from other sources was found to be “poor academic practice,” while a third incident in June 2019 was classified as “moderate plagiarism.”
The woman graduated from university in 2019 and first attempted the Part A Bar exam in 2020 but failed two papers.
After retaking the papers she had failed, she passed the Part A Bar exam in 2022 on her fifth attempt.
In 2023, she passed the Part B Bar exam, which is also taken by graduates from local law schools.
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Attempts to Conceal Academic Wrongdoings
The woman tried to conceal her academic wrongdoings by not giving her consent for the university to disclose information to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) when they sought details about her academic history.
In June 2023, she applied to be admitted to the Bar and filed a supporting affidavit without declaring the Part A incident.
When questioned about this omission, she claimed she genuinely believed she had received only an informal warning that did not require a declaration.
In April 2024, the AGC invited her to withdraw her admission application, which she agreed to do.
Around the same time, the AGC came across a reference to the woman while investigating a separate incident of possible plagiarism involving a group assignment during her university studies.
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After the AGC sought clarifications, she admitted she was part of a group whose submission was investigated for possible plagiarism and eventually consented to the release of the information.
At the hearing before Chief Justice Menon in October 2024, she finally admitted to collaborating with Ms Tan, but only when faced with the prospect of the court finding that she had been lying.
In written grounds issued on 21 Apr 2025, Chief Justice Menon stated: “The applicant’s pattern of dishonesty, including her litany of academic offences involving passing off the work of others as her own and her lack of candour… evidenced serious dishonesty and a persistent unwillingness to come to grips with the nature and gravity of her ethical failures.”
The woman, who remains unnamed, had asked for her identity to be redacted and submitted a memo from a psychiatrist stating she had suicidal thoughts.
Chief Justice Menon directed her in November 2024 to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the Institute of Mental Health, though no report has yet been submitted.
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Chief Justice Menon said the publication of the court’s grounds of decision cannot be delayed indefinitely, particularly where its reasons may have relevance to the wider community.
He published the grounds on an anonymised basis for a fixed interim period, noting that the unredacted form could be published later if the woman does not provide further support for her request.
The Attorney-General, Sile, and the Law Society of Singapore, which are involved in the admission of lawyers, all filed objections to the woman’s admission.
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