Janet Silvera, Gleaner WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
TOUGH MEASURES proposed to amend the Legal Profession Act could see lawyers returning to the classroom for compulsory legal education. The new measures could also give the General Legal Council (GLC) broader powers allowing them to intervene in, and even appropriate incidents of professional misconduct.
A draft of the bill, which is to be tabled in Parliament and may become law as early as next year, recommends that lawyers enrol in 'continuing legal education courses' annually and those who fail to comply shall be guilty of professional misconduct.
Those charged with professional misconduct will automatically have their licences revoked.
The law, if it takes effect could see Prime Minister P.J. Patterson who has been out of practice for some 20 years, the Attorney-General A.J. Nicholson, out for some 15 years, as well as Ministers K.D. Knight and John Junor among the islands' 2,000 lawyers back in school, if they wish to return to the courtroom.
"It's not a matter of going back to school," Attorney-General Nicholson said, brushing off the term. He said all professions have continuing education, "Nurses, journalists I hope doctors, he quipped. "This should be a very good thing for lawyers, they should welcome it," he added.
The Sunday Gleaner has learnt that a number of the island's lawyers are opposed to aspects of the bill, saying the legislation is skewed against them.
The bill gives the GLC the power to take possession of a practice if an attorney becomes bankrupt, struck off the roll, or suspended from practice and no satisfactory arrangements are made in relation to clients' money in trust accounts.
This power of intervention also is applicable if an attorney dies or has been found guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction of any offense involving dishonesty.
TOO MUCH POWER
"I agree in principle," said Acting Jamaican Bar Association President, Clayton Morgan. "But I do think that the draft amendment gives too much power and discretion to the GLC."
He said before intervention by the GLC, the interests of the attorney should be safeguarded. "They must satisfy a high court that there is just reason to intervene, before going in," said the attorney.
Citing irreparable damage once intervention takes place, Mr. Morgan said once that happens, that practice is dead, whether justified or not.
According to Mr. Morgan, attorneys are to a significant degree, responsible for bringing this heap of coals on their heads.
In recent years, a number of lawyers have brought the profession into disrepute and this is what caused the GLC and the Bar Association to act.
Opposition Senator Dorothy Light-bourne is among a group of senior attorneys proposing the bill.
"We have proposed it, but at the same time how exactly we want to go about it, is another thing." the Seanator told The Sunday Gleaner. "Yes, there are certain clauses which need to be looked at," she admitted.
