Solicitor

It was established law that the purposes of the imposition of sanctions on defaulting solicitors were three-fold:

(i) in some cases there might be a punitive element in order to punish the solicitor, if he had not been dealt with by the courts, and to deter others, however, such orders were not primarily punitive and often the order was not punitive in intention;

(ii) the order might be intended to ensure that the solicitor did not have the opportunity to repeat the offence; an order of suspension or striking off might achieve that in varying degrees; and, most fundamentally

(iii) the order was intended to maintain public confidence in the solicitors’ profession and its reputation. Further, because such orders were not primarily punitive, personal mitigation was likely to be of less effect. Nevertheless, the solicitors’ disciplinary tribunal also had to take into account the rights of the solicitor under Arts 6 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.