I have read your recent article concerning Sarah Harman's suspension for three months (see [2005] Gazette, 8 December, 4), and an article written in her defence in last Sunday's Observer.

On the face of it, a three-month suspension seems rather harsh on a solicitor of the calibre of Ms Harman . No doubt, when the decision of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal is published in the Gazette we may come to know the reasons for this suspension, which is imposed ultimately on behalf of the profession. As it is, it smacks of an over-reaction and over-deference to the establishment.


What has come of the right of free speech? I seem to remember some lectures about this in my law degree course.


Charles Duchenne, Hawkins Russell Jones, Hitchin, Hertfordshire