A Hong Kong national security judge has received a “serious reprimand” from the city’s chief justice of the Court of Final Appeal after a trademark dispute case he handled was ordered for retrial over plagiarism.
The Court of Appeal, in a judgement last Friday, ordered a trademark dispute overseen by High Court Judge Wilson Chan to be retried by another judge, after ruling that Chan had copied the majority of the plaintiff’s written submission in his judgement. The case involved Wong To Yick Wood Lock Ointment and companies and individuals linked to Singapore Medicine.
Singapore Medicine filed an appeal two years ago after Chan ruled in favour of Wong To Yick Wood Lock Ointment in 2020. Singapore Medicine, the defendant, claimed that the judge had copied “over 98 per cent” of his judgement from the plaintiff’s case.
“[O]ver 98% of the Judgment were copied from [the plaintiff’s] written submissions; among the remaining 2%, there is not one full sentence written by the trial judge in his own words,” the appeal court ruling cited the defendant’s claim.
Court of Appeal judges Susan Kwan, Maria Yuen and Godfrey Lam, said that Chan had only made “cosmetic changes” and that “the plaintiff’s submissions were copied verbatim” in the comparison between the judgement and the plaintiff’s case provided by the defendant.
Kwan, Yuen, and Lam said judgements were a judge’s “core work-product.”
“For that, he must bring his own mind to bear on the issues and demonstrate it by expressing, in his own language (however succinctly), how a finding of fact or a conclusion in law is reached,” Friday’s judgement read.
“[T]here was only a wholesale copying of the plaintiff’s submissions in [Chan’s] judgment,” the three judges added.
“A reasonable person can hardly be assured that the judge has been willing or able to apply his own intellect to the issues and to come to grips with them himself.”
Chan is one of the city’s handpicked national security judges. He is currently handling the government’s application for an injunction to ban the distribution of pro-democracy protest song Glory to Hong Kong with criminal intent.
The High Court judge dropped out from a landmark national security trial involving the case concerning 47 democrats who took part in an unofficial primaries for the then-postponed Legislative Council election, citing health reasons. Chan was replaced by another judge in the case.
Public confidence in the Judiciary
After the Court of Appeal ruling last Friday, Chief Justice Andrew Cheung issued a “serious reprimand” to Chan over the trademark dispute case, the Judiciary told HKFP on Wednesday, adding that Chan said he understood and agreed with the warning.
“Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal Andrew Cheung completely agrees with the Court of Appeal judgement that there can be no copying in judgements,” the Judiciary said.
“[Cheung] thinks that copying is unfair to both the plaintiff and defendant, and it will also affect the public confidence in the Judiciary, and is completely unacceptable.”
The Judiciary added that the chief justice of the top court had instructed the Hong Kong Judicial Institute to strengthen training against judicial copying.
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