Appeal Court to hear lawyer's challenge to suspension

THE Court of Appeal is to next Tuesday scheduled to hear an application from Kingston attorney Oswald James for a stay of his one-year suspension from legal practice.

James is seeking the stay of the suspension handed down by the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council on February 21, pending his appeal of the decision.

The attorney last week filed an appeal against the ruling which he said was harsh and would only serve to ruin his career.

James, in papers filed with the appellate court, said that the council did not take into consideration certain evidence that would have resulted in his vindication.

In addition to the suspension, James was ordered to pay the $150,000 legal costs of the man whose complaint led to his suspension. The attorney is also required to pick up the $50,000 legal costs for the council, stemming from the hearing.

James' suspension follows a 2003 complaint from client Ralph Douglas, who alleged that the attorney misled him, which resulted in him losing out on a $2.5-million order made by the Supreme Court in relation to a dispute over a parcel of land at the Portmore Town Centre in St Catherine.

Douglas also alleged that James knowingly made a false statement of fact to him.

James, he claimed, knowingly assisted Paul Afflick (the other party in the land dispute that was before the Supreme Court) to break the law and facilitated Afflick's disobedience of the court order by providing inaccurate information concerning the net proceeds from the sale of the parcel of Portmore land.