Attorney-at-law Mr Isat Buchanan can regard himself as fortunate that the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council (GLC) felt moved to suspend him from legal practice for only two years, after his profanity-laced rant against the director of public prosecutions (DPP) and the justice minister.

Although Mr Buchanan apparently sees himself as a gladiator battling to right the wrongs of the law, a cursory look at his history of run-ins with the law would show that he has benefited from much patience, understanding, and leniency from the system. In a word, he has largely received justice.

The GLC, on Tuesday, suspended Mr Buchanan for two years, fined him $500,000, and ordered him to pay costs of $20,000 to the council as punishment for his rather “offensive, profane, vulgar, foul, and obscene” comments against DPP Mrs Paula Llewellyn and Justice Minister Mr Delroy Chuck on a YouTube programme in August.

While not contesting the essence of the complaint made against her client at the GLC Disciplinary Committee hearing, attorney Ms Valerie Neita-Robertson, KC, submitted that Mr Buchanan was genuinely sorry and had learnt his lesson.

We in this space are not persuaded that Mr Buchanan has learnt his lesson, given the preponderance of experience that he has garnered over the years in clashes with law enforcement both in Jamaica and the United States.

In 1996/1997, he was about to board a flight at Norman Manley International Airport to the United States when he was arrested for allegedly having drugs in his possession. News reports quoted him as saying he had innocently agreed to carry the packages for a neighbour who said it contained cash. He was eventually convicted and paid a fine of approximately $1 million.

In 1999, Mr Buchanan was given a 10-year prison sentence for allegedly having drugs in his possession on a domestic flight to Florida in the US. News reports also quoted him as saying the drugs were found in the possession of another passenger who told authorities it belonged to him (Buchanan) and he was charged. He was deported after about eight years.

In 2020, attorney Buchanan was found guilty of professional misconduct by the GLC in a matter involving the DPP while he acted for entertainer Vybz Kartel. His sanctions hearing was held only last October 2022.

In 2021, he was reportedly involved in a physical altercation with a cop on the grounds of the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court at Half-Way-Tree when he intervened in a dispute between a civilian and the cop. He declined to comment on the incident to journalists.

In respect of this year’s matter, the GLC said that, despite its finding of professional misconduct in October 2022 in relation to the DPP, “not even a year later, he goes on a public programme and again disparages the same DPP… Clearly, he learnt nothing from this first complaint.”

On the contrary, Mr Buchanan seems to have been able to prevail against attempts to block him from being called to the bar after his law studies in 2017 and his appointment as a justice of the peace in 2019, because of his legal history.

His eventful life suggests that he ought to know better than to bring his profession into disrepute, even if he believes that he has a bone to pick with the law.