New South Wales Bar Association v Somosi

[2001] NSWCA 285

NSW Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Legal Practitioners
2. › Professional discipline
3. › Barristers
4. › Removal from Roll of Legal Practitioners
5. › Fitness to practise
6. › Whether systematic course of tax evasion renders barrister unfit
7. › Whether declaration that not a fit and proper person appropriate
1. Legal Practitioners
2. › Professional discipline
3. › Barristers
4. › Professional misconduct
5. › Conduct outside course of practice
6. › Whether failure to file tax returns and pay income tax for seventeen years constitutes professional misconduct
1. Evidence
2. › Admissibility
3. › Unfair prejudice
4. › Whether evidence should be excluded under s 135 of Evidence Act 1995
5. › Whether inability of opposing party to call rebuttal witness due to statutory secrecy provisions constitutes unfair prejudice
6. › Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), s 135
1. Evidence
2. › Admissibility
3. › Collateral attack on prior conviction
4. › Whether evidence challenging factual findings underlying criminal conviction constitutes impermissible collateral attack
5. › Whether collateral attack doctrine engaged where court not materially concerned with conviction as such

Quick Take

A systematic course of tax evasion by a legal practitioner constitutes professional misconduct and demonstrates unfitness for practice, even though the conduct occurs outside the course of legal practice. In professional disciplinary proceedings, the Court is entitled to assess the underlying conduct on which a conviction is based from the distinctive perspectives of professional misconduct and fitness to practise, and the collateral attack doctrine is not engaged where the Court is not materially concerned with the conviction as such.