A Supreme Court judge with a history of plagiarism will be reprimanded for another incident in which he copied large portions of a party’s submissions at his trial.
The judiciary said in a response to HKFP on Wednesday that High Court Judge Wilson Chan will receive a “serious rebuke” from Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and High Court Chief Justice Jeremy Poon over the judicial copying issue.
The judiciary said judges must “exercise their judicial function in an independent and professional manner” and demonstrate fairness and justice.
“If a judge excessively copies a party’s submissions in writing judgment in an individual case, doubt will inevitably arise as to whether the judge has applied an independent mind in addressing the facts and issues to be determined,” the Court added.
The statement came after the local media reported on Monday that Chan was accused by the plaintiff of omitting the defendant’s opening and closing arguments when writing a ruling for a trial in 2024, prompting a retrial to be ordered. Those paragraphs made up 95 percent of the judgment.
This is not the first time Chan has been caught plagiarizing. In two previous cases in 2023, the Court of Appeal ordered cases handled by Chan to undergo a retrial, and Chief Justice Cheung issued a “serious reprimand”.
“As Mr. Wilson Chan’s decision in the said case again involves a significant amount of judicial copying, the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal and the Chief Justice of the High Court will again issue serious reprimands to Judge Wilson Chan in relation to this matter and require him to undertake targeted training,” the Judiciary said.
‘An attitude problem’
Speaking in an interview on Commercial Radio on Wednesday, counsel and government lawyer Ronny Tong said Chan’s impersonation had affected the reputation of Hong Kong’s judicial system.
He explained that judges are required to cite arguments presented by both sides in a lawsuit. “However, citing arguments is not as simple as just copying,” he said in Cantonese.
“We need to show the extent to which we understand the arguments and whether we understand the statements made by both sides. The repeated occurrence of individual cases without correction or improvement will really affect perceptions of the quality of Hong Kong’s judicial system,” said Tong.
Tong also said the threshold to invoke a provision in the Basic Law to remove a judge from office was “quite high”, adding that he would respect the Chief Justice’s decision while hoping the Judiciary would take public opinion into account.
“I don’t think it’s a training issue, because it’s a basic requirement for judges. Every judge has to know how to handle arguments from both sides of a case. If they can’t understand even the most basic requirements, it could be an attitude problem, not something that training can fix,” he said.
