Hong Kong High Court judge Wilson Chan caught plagiarising judgement for third time

A Hong Kong judge previously reprimanded for plagiarism has been caught copying again, making it the third known incident over the past three years.

High Court judge Wilson Chan was accused by the plaintiff in a case he presided over of lifting the defendant’s opening and closing arguments. Those paragraphs comprised 95 per cent of the judgement he delivered, local media reported on Monday.

The case related to a dispute between Koo Ming-kown, the founder of digital products company Nam Tai Electronics, and his former brother-in-law. Koo had sued his brother-in-law for not giving up HK$40 million in shares.

After Koo lost the case, he filed an appeal, stating that Chan had copied large parts of his brother-in-law’s submissions, as he questioned whether the judge had properly analysed the case.

The Court of Appeal sided with Koo last week, ordering a retrial before a different judge.

‘Judicial copying’

Chan, who presided over the early proceedings of the 47 democrats national security case, has been caught plagiarising at least twice before.

Local media reported in 2023 that the defendant in a trademark dispute case involving two pharmaceutical brands appealed after losing, saying that Chan copied the majority of the plaintiff’s written submission in his judgement.

That same year, Chan was also found to have plagiarised most of his ruling in a case concerning real estate giant Great Eagle Holdings. The defendant, who lost the case, had filed an appeal accusing Chan of lifting large parts of the plaintiff’s submissions.

The appeal judges found that 92 per cent of Chan’s judgement was plagiarised. His judgement gave the impression that Chan had not exercised his responsibility and had unquestioningly accepted the submissions of the winning party, the judges said.

In both incidents, the Court of Appeal ordered the cases to undergo a retrial by a different judge. The Court of Final Appeal’s chief judge Andrew Cheung issued a “serious reprimand” to Chan over “judicial copying.”

After that, Chan – who was meant to preside over the government’s application for a ban on the protest song Glory to Hong Kong – was replaced by another judge in the case.

HKFP has reached out to the Judiciary for comment on the latest incident.