SINGAPORE — A law graduate who was called to the Bar after a five-month deferment for having plagiarised during an examination and lying about it later, said that she will focus on justifying the faith placed in her by the law fraternity and to "make everyone proud".

The comments by Ms Stasia Ong Pei Qi on Thursday (March 14) came after Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon's decision on Feb 27 to admit her as an advocate and solicitor.

He had determined that she was "a fit and proper person" and had "sufficiently demonstrated that she had learned from her past misconduct".

In a statement provided to TODAY, Ms Ong said that she "very much appreciates the honourable Chief Justice’s words, which will fortify her as she embarks on her career".

"(I) would like to focus (my) energies on my legal practice to justify the faith that he and the legal community have placed in (me), and to make everyone proud,” she added.

In 2020, Ms Ong, then a law graduate at the National University of Singapore (NUS), was found to have plagiarised from a sample essay in an open-book exam. She lied about doing so in a subsequent inquiry.

She voluntarily disclosed her misconduct last year when she was applying to the Bar and her application was subject to a five-month deferment. The deferment period ended on Jan 20 this year.

During the inquiry, Ms Ong confessed to an NUS staff member about lying, which led the university to reduce her grade and issue her a warning letter.

Releasing the grounds of his decision last Friday, Chief Justice Menon said that Ms Ong's conduct in disclosing her mistakes is a "positive example of what aspiring lawyers should strive for in such circumstances".

WHAT HAPPENED

On April 28 in 2020, Ms Ong, who was then a second-year undergraduate, sat for an open-book exam where she "copied and pasted" from a sample essay written by her senior.

NUS' Faculty of Law then held an inquiry a month later after it realised that her answer had substantial similarities to three other students' answers.

Ms Ong said that she had been working on her draft exam answer with two separate documents — one containing the sample essay with slight changes, while the other had a copy of the same sample essay that she was "working to amend afresh".

However, she claimed to have submitted the wrong document, even though in reality, a second document that she was supposedly working on did not exist, Chief Justice Menon said.

Although NUS was unaware that Ms Ong had lied, it found that she had plagiarised and awarded her zero marks for the essay question.

"The applicant subsequently completed her undergraduate studies without any further issues or incidents," Chief Justice Menon added.

Last year, several years after the incident, Ms Ong filed her application to be admitted to the Bar. In it, she revealed that she had not just committed plagiarism, but also lied during the inquiry.

She had contacted the NUS staff member who communicated with her during the inquiry and asked how the plagiarism case would affect her application to the Bar before she applied.

In their email exchange, Ms Ong admitted on March 30 last year that she had lied during the inquiry and was "extremely regretful of (her) actions and would like to own up to (her) past mistakes”.

NUS then revised her grade for the module from C to D and issued her a letter of warning.

Following the disclosure in her application, the Attorney-General and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education said on Aug 31 last year that Ms Ong was not fit to be admitted to the Bar at the time and sought a deferment of five months for Ms Ong to reflect on her actions.

'SHOWED GENUINE REMORSE'

Seeking to be admitted to the Bar, Ms Ong said during the hearing that she was "now a fit and proper person" and that disclosing her plagiarism "showed her genuine remorse".

Chief Justice Menon said: "She further submitted that she has since shown evidence of rehabilitation through the passage of three years since the academic offence, her clean record in NUS since then, and her productive stint at a law firm during which she had the opportunity to engage in pro bono work."

The Attorney-General, the Law Society of Singapore, and the Singapore Institute of Legal Education did not object to her application to the Bar.

Chief Justice Menon said he was "satisfied that the applicant had sufficiently demonstrated that she had learned from her past misconduct", though he acknowledged that her actions were serious in nature.

He also said that 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 cast a very positive light, not just on her appreciation that what she had done was wrong, but more importantly on her genuine desire to come clean and to make a fresh start on the right footing," he added.