CHAIR of the General Legal Council (GLC) Denise Kitson King’s Council says she on Wednesday lodged a complaint to the 25-member disciplinary committee of the council in relation to the “entire” video on which beleaguered attorney Isat Buchanan recently made revolting comments about senior government officials.

In the referenced video interview with a blogger about the recent decision of Parliament to increase the age of the holders of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) and the Auditor General, Buchanan quoted a sexually explicit lyric by his incarcerated client Adidja Palmer, aka Vybz Kartel, in reference to DPP Paula Llewellyn, King’s Counsel, intimating that she should perform a sex act. He further harshly criticised Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, King’s Counsel, and stated that he did not like Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor, King’s Counsel, because he is “fat”.

“I don’t like anybody,” Buchanan said in the video which has drawn the ire of several prominent Jamaicans and civic groups. The attorney has since apologised in a statement where he referenced his remarks “and use of the song” as “indeed unfortunate”. In the wake of the public outcry over his comments he also resigned his post as chairman of the People’s National Party (PNP) Human Rights Commission. He was also sacked by CVM Television, where he was contracted as a co-host of the SUNRISE morning show.

Speaking with the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday, the GLC chair confirmed that the complaint had been filed by her as a member of the council. She, however, emphasised that any hearing will be confidential.

“The disciplinary rules say that everything that occurs from hereon in is confidential. I can’t speak to what the complaint says or what he may respond to. I don’t know how it has been launched on all these platforms because I certainly haven’t indicated to anyone since it was filed today,” she told the Observer.

In pointing out that the complaint has been filed in relation to what Buchanan said in “the entire video”, Kitson said, “the problem is that a lot of people stopped listening, it seems, after they heard about Ms Llewellyn, but if you listen to the entire video it does not relate to Ms Llewellyn alone”.

The disciplinary committee is the body charged with maintaining the standards of the legal profession. It reviews the behaviour of an attorney set out in the complaint, and if the complaint is proved it applies an appropriate sanction to deal with that behaviour. The committee sits in panels of three to hear complaints. At the hearing of a complaint, evidence is taken orally or on affidavit if the need arises. Because the proceedings are quasi-judicial, and may have such far reaching consequences for the public and attorneys-at-law, the rules of the laws of evidence are adhered to although not followed as strictly as in a formal court proceeding. In giving judgment the panel hearing the complaint always reduces the reasons for its decision into writing.

In October 2022, Buchanan was found guilty of professional misconduct by the disciplinary committee of the GLC. He was at that time hauled before the GLC at the urging of Director of Public Prosecution Paula Llewellyn, after he accused her office of seeking to frustrate the defence’s bid to gain access to the Vybz Kartel’s phone which had been seized as evidence in the artiste’s murder trial. The panel determined that Buchanan had breached Canon 1b of the Legal Profession (Canons of Professional Ethics) Rules. That section states that “an attorney shall at all times maintain the honour and dignity of the profession, and shall abstain from behaviour which may tend to discredit the profession of which he (or she) is a member”.

In July 2022 Buchanan also came under fire on social media site Twitter, after he belittled the concerns Jamaicans had about the pockmarks left by monkeypox stating, “…I want to know why are some Jamaicans so worried about monkeypox when they already look a certain way?… And I am saying that some of the spots look like acne and people walking around and dem face bumpy, bumpy like that. Fix it Jesus, fix it!”