Solicitor at private hearing reprimanded for professional misconduct, fined, deprived of professional costs from client, and made liable to discretionary imposition of conditions on practising certificate - convention right to fair and public hearing not engaged or infringed

R (Thompson) v Law Society: CA (Lords Justice Kennedy, Clarke and Jacob): 20 February 2004

The client relations sub-committee of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors at a private hearing found the claimant guilty of misconduct in conducting his clients' cases, reprimanded him, imposed a fine, deprived him of the right to recover his costs from his clients, and also conferred a discretion on the Law Society to impose any conditions in respect of his practising certificate.

The decision was upheld on review by an adjudication panel after receiving representation from the claimant.

He sought judicial review of the sub-committee's decision on the ground that such finding had infringed his rights under article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights because the hearing had not taken place fairly and in public.

The judge in the Administrative Court dismissed the claim.

The claimant sought permission to appeal.

Philip Engelman (instructed by Wayne Thompson & Co) for the claimant; Timothy Dutton QC and Rosalind Phelps (instructed by Wright Son & Pepper) for the Law Society.

Held, refusing permission, that the rules of the Law Society were the Society's domestic rules, the implementation of which did not engage the solicitor's right under article 6(1); that the decision to confer a discretion on the Society to impose any condition when renewing the claimant's practising certificate was not a determin-ation of his civil rights within article 6(1); and that, if the Society imposed any condition when he applied to renew his certificate his right under article 6(1) was protected by the process of an appeal against the conditions to the Master of the Rolls, who would hear the appeal fairly and in public.