When so many applicants cheated in a professional qualifying examination in so many papers, including one for ‘Ethics and Professional Responsibility’, then something is wrong somewhere.

Is there “a culture of cheating brewing in the earlier stages” of an aspiring lawyer’s education? Why did the applicants learn “so poorly” from a course meant to instil ethics and professional conduct?

Justice Choo Han Teck posed these pertinent questions last week in his grounds of decision in respect of 6 applicants who had applied for admission as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore.