In The Matter Of Cyril Bunting Rogers Wright, A Legal Practitioner V. In The Matter Of The Legal Practitioners (Disciplinary Committee) Ordinance, Cap. 118 Of The Laws Of Sierra Leone (1950)
LawGlobal Hub Judgment Report – West African Court of Appeal
Professional misconduct by a Legal Practitioner—Acting for clients with conflicting interests—Filing affidavits, knowing one to be false—misconduct by negligence and responsibility for acts of a clerk.
Facts
The appellant appealed against a decision of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sierra Leone, striking him off the roll for professional misconduct for accepting three sets of clients with conflicting interests and for filing two affidavits, one of which he must have known to be false.
The trial Court found both charges to be proved, but this Court found only the first charge to be established.
Counsel for the appellant argued that the Chief Justice had not made it clear whether he had found the appellant personally guilty of professional misconduct or whether the ground of his liability was merely the misconduct of his managing clerk. The Court also considered the question as to whether a solicitor was guilty of prolessional misconduct if the misconduct was on the part of his clerk and only negligence was alleged against the solicitor.
Held
Following Myers v. Elman (2) that misconduct by a clerk, involving negligence by a solicitor, amounts to professional misconduct, but that before striking a solicitor off the roll or suspending him, a Court will require proof of personal misconduct.
Held further, that both charges, if proved, would amount to professional misconduct, that the first charge alone had been proved, and that the Chief Justice had, in fact, found the appellant personally guilty of professional misconduct.
On the question of punishment this Court considered, having regard to all the circumstances, that the order striking the appellant off the roll was unduly severe and varied the order of the Chief Justice by substituting an order that he should be suspended for a period of eighteen months.
Judgment varied.
