2) WHEN LPCC FAILED TO PROVE THE LPCC VEXATIOUS ALLEGATIONS, THE VARIOUS HONOURABLE JUDGES SIMPLY REFUSED TO GIVE JUDICIAL RECOGNITION TO IT (THE LPCC VEXATIOUS ALLEGATIONS).
3) LPCC ESCALATED THE LPCC VEXATIOUS ALLEGATIONS BY CHANGING ITS GOAL POSTS CONTINUALLY AND THEREBY REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE PRINCIPLE OF THE RULE OF LAW AS A RESULT.
4) LPCC WAS ALLOWED TO GET AWAY WITH ITS CRIME BY INTRODUCING A RES JUDICATA RED-HERRING - THE SHAM VICTIMLESS MATHIAS DISHONESTY SANS MISAPPROPRIATION OF PROPERTY OR MONIES, OR EVEN SIMPLE DISHONESTY WHEN THE COURT WAS NEVER MISLED BY ME AS TO THE TRUE FACTS OF THE MATTHIAS COST AGREEMENT (THE SHAM DISHONESTY).
5) THE COURT REFUSED TO RECOGNIZE THE JUDICIAL FACT THAT THE MATHIAS COST AGREEMENT WAS "ADDED TO" AFTER IT WAS WRITTEN AND A COPY WAS PROVIDED TO HER AT THE SAME TIME.
The Australian Professional Liability Blog
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Posted: 13 Apr 2013 05:14 AM PDT
I have posted before about the Darwin solicitor whose disciplinary complaint against a fellow practitioner resulted in her being fined $19,500 for making that complaint without a proper factual foundation. I have just come across another case in which a female solicitor was disciplined for her intemperate allegations against another lawyer, despite having had an honest belief that she had a reasonable basis for making them: Legal Profession Complaints Committee v in de Braekt[2011] WASAT 1. She was recently struck off: [2013] WASC 124.
A panel provided over by a judge of Supreme Court of Western Australia and President of WASAT, Justice John Cheney, said in the earlier decision:
’107 Legal practitioners should be slow to make allegations of impropriety against other legal practitioners or their client. Such allegations should not be made unless there is a reasonable basis upon which to make them. The same can be said of allegations of abuse of process. It is apparent that the impropriety asserted by Ms in de Braekt was based upon her view that, having regard to the various matters upon which she relied, the winding up proceedings amounted to an abuse of process.’
I am looking at another matter at the moment in which a complaint has been made to a Legal Services Commissioner by one of the lawyers for one party to extant litigation against one of the other party’s lawyers, in relation to conduct which is itself the subject of the civil proceedings and which is in fact said to have generated the information on which those proceedings are founded. Even if the disciplinary complaint is stayed pending the exhaustion of appeals from the civil proceedings, it seems to me that the propriety of making a complaint in such circumstances is doubtful. Does anyone have any views, or — better — authority on the question? |
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Posted: 12 Apr 2013 05:18 PM PDT
In Forster v. Legal Services Board [2013] VSCA 73, Kyrou AJA, with whom Weinberg and Harper JJA agreed, restated briefly the law which requires lawyers to be absolutely honest in their dealings with Courts:
’161 In Meek v Fleming,[85] Holroyd Pearce LJ agreed with the proposition that while a lawyer must not knowingly mislead the Court as to the facts or the law, he or she may put such matters as he or she believes will best advance the client’s case.[86] A party need not reveal something to the discredit of that party. However, this does not mean that the party can by implication falsely pretend that a particular state of affairs exists, and knowing that the court has been misled with respect to a material matter, foster and confirm the misrepresentation through answers given by the party.[87] A lawyer who is a party to the presentation of evidence or the making of a statement to the court that is partly true, but which does not amount to the whole truth, can create a misleading impression to the Court and thereby breach his or her duty to the Court. Once a misleading impression has been created, even if innocently, the lawyer has an obligation to correct that impression as soon as he or she becomes aware of the true position.[88] That obligation continues until judgment is given.[89]
162 Misleading the Court by presenting a misleading or false document is contrary to the lawyer’s duty of honesty and candour, including in his or her capacity as a litigant.[90] In Law Society of New South Wales v Foreman,[91] the New South Wales Court of Appeal ordered that the respondent be removed from the Roll of practitioners, because she had knowingly presented a falsified document to the Court on the basis that it was genuine. Mahoney JA stated that:
A practitioner must not merely not deceive the court before which she practises; she must be fully frank in what she does before it. This obligation takes precedence over the practitioner’s duty to her client, to other practitioners and to herself: Meek v Fleming [1961] 2 QB 366 at 382, 383. The justice system will not work if a practitioner is, for her own purposes, free to put to the court that which she knows to be false.[92]
163 In Myers v Elman,[93] Viscount Maugham said that: ‘A solicitor who has innocently put on the file an affidavit by his client which he has subsequently discovered to be certainly false owes it to the Court to put the matter right at the earliest date if he continues to act as solicitor upon the record.’[94] Similarly, in Foreman, Giles AJA stated that the respondent’s failure to reveal and correct the conduct by which the Court had been misled, compounded the unacceptable conduct involved in preparing the falsified document.[95]
[86] Meek v Fleming [1961] 2 QB 366, 379.
[87] Meek v Fleming [1961] 2 QB 366, 380.
[88] Myers v Elman [1940] AC 282, 294.
[89] Vernon v Bosley [No 2] [1999] QB 18, 37, 56, 63.
[90] Coe v New South Wales Bar Assn [2000] NSWCA 13, [8], [10]; NSW Bar Assn v Cummins [2001] NSWCA 284;(2001) 52 NSWLR 279, 290 [59].
[91] (1994) 34 NSWLR 408 (‘Foreman’).
[92] Foreman (1994) 34 NSWLR 408, 447.
[94] Myers v Elman [1940] AC 282, 294.
[95] Foreman (1994) 34 NSWLR 408, 466.’
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