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High Court judge Wilson Chan Ka-shun has been found to have engaged in judicial copying for the fifth time, with the Court of Appeal ordering a retrial in the Nam Tai Property case after nearly 95 percent of his judgment was found to have been copied from one party's submissions, the judiciary said.
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The case involved Nam Tai Electronics founder Koo Ming-kown and his sister, who claimed a former brother-in-law had agreed to hold Nam Tai parent company shares worth about HK$40 million as a trustee. Chan ruled against Koo, but the appeal court found his judgment showed no evidence he had considered conflicting evidence or made independent findings on key issues.
The judiciary said that while incorporating parties' submissions into judgments is acceptable to some extent and common in common law systems, "large-scale judicial copying must be firmly avoided in all circumstances."
Chan's judicial duties had already been adjusted last year following previous copying incidents, with him assigned primarily to criminal cases that do not require written judgments.
Chief Justice Andrew Cheung and Chief Judge of the High Court Jeremy Poon will again issue a serious reprimand to Chan and require him to undergo targeted training.
