Weighing in on the 11 trainee lawyers who cheated in the 2020 Bar exams, K Shanmugam said that there were no other such cases found.
Speaking in Parliament on Monday (May 9), the Law and Home Affairs Minister said that “there is a difference” between whether cheating in the exams had occurred and what the Singapore Institute of Legal Education (SILE) has found. However, he emphasised that there were no other such cases found.
Out of the 11 trainee lawyers that had cheated in their 2020 Bar examinations, six of them had their admission to the Bar delayed, after the Attorney-General objected to their applications for admission.
High Court Judge Choo Han Teck had issued his grounds of decision on April 18, redacting the names of the applicants in the hope that they will not be prejudiced in the long run, in the spirit of second chances. But he reversed his decision on April 27 following an application by the Attorney-General.
Justice Choo added that he initially believed that redacting their names would let them go about the process of recovery quietly and uneventfully, but then felt that they should face the publicity rather than hide from it.
In Parliament on Monday (May 9), MP Seah Kian Peng (PAP-Marine Parade) asked about second chances for the cheating trainee lawyers whose names were made known publicly.
Without being able to comment fully as the trainee lawyers’ applications were still pending in court, Mr Shanmugam said that the approach should be to consider what the offence is and who committed it.
In this case, the offence of cheating is serious and given that trainee lawyers committed it, it is “doubly serious”, he added.
He said that most people might say that preventing the young trainees from practising would be too harsh. “So what is the appropriate penalty, taking into account the seriousness of the offence, but also their age? Should they forever be prevented from being lawyers, being called to the Bar? I think most people will think that is probably too harsh”, he said.
“Should they face a significant sanction that brings across the seriousness of the conduct? I think most people will agree with that. Within that framework, how the courts decide, I think we have to wait and see”, Mr Shanmugam noted. /TISG
6 law grads who cheated in S’pore bar exams get delayed in legal profession admission