FOLLOWING last week’s ruling of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in his favour, attorney-at-law Michael Lorne has launched a broadside against the General Legal Council (GLC), which he claimed is undemocratic and in need of a makeover.

“The General Legal Council is not a democratic organisation. It is a friend invite a friend to sit on that disciplinary committee. It is not a thing where lawyers vote or have any say as to who sits in the committee,” Lorne alleged in an interview with the Jamaica Observer over the weekend.

The GLC, the regulator of the legal profession in Jamaica, had taken Lorne to the Privy Council, seeking to overturn a 2021 decision by the Court of Appeal that he should not be disbarred.

According to the GLC, Jamaica’s Appeal Court should not have interfered with the decision of its disciplinary committee to strike Lorne from the roll of attorneys-at-law entitled to practise in Jamaica for professional misconduct over his handling of a transaction dating back to October 2002.

But the Privy Council, in handing down its ruling for the appeal, which was heard in February this year, said it “has concluded that the Court of Appeal was entitled to interfere with the decision of the committee as to the appropriate sanction and to substitute its own judgment”.

Further responding to the ruling of the Privy Council, Lorne charged that the case was shrouded in malice.

He argued that because he is a Rastafarian he has been subject to prejudice and unfair treatment, but this will neither stop him nor his family.

“I should point out that I have a daughter in Canada who is a lawyer, I have a son who is a lawyer, and I have another daughter presently at the law faculty studying law, so dem going tired fi see mi face, whether dem like it or not. I have a daughter in media who is also considering law,” said Lorne as he outlined what he claimed was discrimination he has faced over the years because of his dreadlocks.

“In 1976, I was working at the Half-Way-Tree court office and I was fired from that work when they realised I was dreadlocks. I used to wear a tam, and couple of weeks after I started I was fired. It was from those days I have been getting a fight. It has not been easy as a dreadlocks Rastaman. There has been a lot of malice and spite,” Lorne claimed.

He expressed gratitude to his legal team which successfully argued the case at the Privy Council.

“I want to thank Bianca Samuels. She travelled to the Privy Council and marshalled the evidence. There are two other lawyers in England who I thank: Linda Hudson, who is a Jamaican from Hanover, helped us a lot in arguing the case as well as Julian Malins,” said Lorne.

He told the Observer that despite the ruling in his favour by the Privy Council he has not changed his position that the court should no longer be Jamaica’s final court of appeal.

“Since the news came out about the case, a lot of people have called me and they are bigging up the Privy Council and England, and it hurts me greatly because I fully support the abolishing of the Privy Council. I think we should subscribe to the Caribbean Court of Justice and that is where we should go,” he said.

“What the Privy Council has done, the Court of Appeal here in Jamaica did just that. It was the Court of Appeal ruling that the Privy Council has followed. It was the GLC who carried me to the Privy Council because they appealed against the ruling of the Appeal Court. I don’t want to make this judgment overshadow the worth and value of our Court of Appeal, and I don’t want people to think that my stance has changed because of this victory. We can be a dignified country, honouring our ancestors, and, therefore, we must try hard to become separate from our colonial masters,” Lorne said.

“With regards to the GLC, I have been advocating for changes. I wrote to them outlining the changes and they just ignored the letters. This old system needs to be abolished and a new system put in place. Let us strengthen our Court of Appeal here. Where they falter and are weak, let us all make them strong. This is not the end of the fight. I will continue this strength to go forward and continue the fight,” Lorne added.

He pointed out that despite all that was happening he had not left the profession and was still practising law.

“I am already back. While the appeal was going on at the Privy Council I had been practising. My family is feeling wonderful, extremely ecstatic about the ruling. My sons and daughters supported me greatly. It is their victory more than mine. I must, in concluding, say thanks to my friend Bert Samuels, because he has been the rock,” declared Lorne.

Lorne was said to have been retained to sell a property at 10 Fairbourne Avenue in eastern Kingston.

In 2012, a report was made to the GLC stating that the owners did not receive any money after their property was sold in 2011 for $6 million.

In 2017, he was found guilty of professional misconduct, disbarred, and ordered to pay restitution to the complainants.

The decision was appealed and in 2021 the Court of Appeal upheld the finding of professional misconduct but said that suspension was an appropriate punishment.

The Privy Council said that the matter was a case of very serious professional misconduct which could justify either a striking off or a significant suspension from practice. However, the British Law Lords held that, “In such circumstances, it was incumbent on the committee to explain what it was in the case that warranted a striking off rather than a lesser sanction and it did not do so. Instead, its reasons were essentially a description of the conduct as egregious, but no more.”