Ijomanta v Solicitors Regulation Authority

LORD JUSTICE MOORE-BICK: This is a renewed application for permission to appeal following refusal on paper by the single Lord Justice.

The Applicant, Mr Ijomanta, was a solicitor who in August 2005 was in practice with a firm called Mantas & Co in North London. On 14 August 2005 he completed a proposal form seeking professional indemnity insurance on behalf of the firm. One of the questions in the form asked whether any fee earner had practised in a firm which had been subject to an investigation or intervention by The Law Society. He answered that question ‘No’.

In fact, however, in February 2005 a senior investigation officer of The Law Society had visited Mantas & Co in order to inspect the firm's books of account and other documents. He found various irregularities and returned for a further inspection in March 2005. His report was produced in May of that year. In addition, the firm had been subject to an assigned risks pool visit in early 2005 which led to the production of a report in March 2005 in which questions were raised about breaches of the Solicitors Accounts Rules and the Solicitors Practice Rules.

During the currency of the indemnity policy, 27 claims were made against Mantas & Co. As a result, the insurers looked rather more carefully at the information that had been provided in the proposal form and in due course they made a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Applicant was charged by the SRA with knowingly giving a false and misleading answer to the question contained in the proposal form.

The matter went to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal where the Applicant argued that the answer that he had given was correct because the question in the proposal form related only to practice with another firm and that, even if on its true construction it included practice with Mantas & Co, he honestly believed that it did not. He also argued that the visits from the officials of The Law Society did not amount to an investigation or intervention within the meaning of the question.

The Tribunal held that the meaning of the question was perfectly clear and obvious and included any firm with which a fee earner had worked at the date of the proposal. The Tribunal rejected the Applicant's evidence and found as a fact that he did not honestly believe that his answer was correct and truthful and that he knew his conduct was dishonest by the standards of ordinary people. Although two other charges against him were dismissed, that charge was found to have been proved.

Unfortunately, the Applicant had been suspended from practice on two previous occasions. Taking into account the finding of dishonesty and the fact that he had been suspended in the past, the Tribunal decided that he should be struck off the Roll.

The Applicant appealed to the High Court against that decision. Before the judge he accepted that the answer he had given to the question in the proposal form was in fact false, but he continued to insist that he had not been dishonest. The judge held that the Tribunal had asked itself the right question and had had the benefit of hearing the Applicant give evidence. In those circumstances, the judge could see no grounds upon which he could properly interfere with the tribunal’s finding of dishonesty, which was a finding of fact. In view of that finding and the Applicant's previous suspensions from practice, the judge considered striking off to be inevitable. He therefore dismissed the appeal.

The Applicant now sees permission to appeal to this court on the grounds that the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and the judge below wrongly construed the question in the proposal form. Moreover, he contends that in view of the grave consequence for a solicitor of a finding of dishonesty, the Tribunal and the judge should have given him the benefit of the doubt about the meaning of the question and should not have found him to be dishonest. He also wishes to argue that the penalty imposed upon him was unreasonable and disproportionate.

As I have reminded Mr Ijomanta, this is an application for permission to make a second appeal and he must therefore satisfy the court not only that an appeal would have a real prospect of success, but that it would raise an important point of principle or practice or that there is some other compelling reason for this court to hear a further appeal.

There is, in my view, no real doubt about the meaning of the question in the proposal form, as indeed the Applicant conceded before the judge. Nor is there any doubt that the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal applied the correct test in coming to the conclusion that the Applicant had been dishonest. It was satisfied, having heard him give evidence, that he knew perfectly well what the question meant and that his answer was false. It is that finding that lay at the root of its conclusion that he had been dishonest.

In my view, there is no basis upon which either the judge below or this court could properly reverse that finding. Neither the judge nor this court would have had the enormous benefit that the Tribunal had of seeing Mr Ijomanta give evidence and hearing his own explanation for what had happened. The penalty imposed by the Tribunal was clearly within the range of penalties that it was entitled to impose, having regard to the nature of the findings and the Applicant's previous suspensions. In my view, an appeal in this case would have no real prospect of success, nor does it satisfy the test for a second appeal. Notwithstanding the gravity of the consequences for a solicitor of findings of this kind, there are no compelling reasons in this case for this court to hear a further appeal.

For all those reasons permission to appeal will be refused.