Attorney Lesley Benjamin has been summoned before the Legal Practitioners’ Committee (LPC), a committee which was set up to probe complaints against lawyers.
In an advertisement in the Monday May 15 edition of the Stabroek News, a notice from the Registrar of the Supreme Court Sueanna Lovell stated that Benjamin is required to appear before the Committee on June 1st at 2pm following a complaint. Benjamin practices in the Maraj Building at Charlotte and King Street, Lacytown, Georgetown. The complaint was made by Andrew Thomas. According to the notice, which was also addressed in care of Benjamin’s relatives and friends, failure to appear before the 12-member committee at Court of Appeal will result in matter being determined in her absence.
Chancellor of the Judiciary (Ag), Justice Yonette Cummings-Edward, had reconstituted the LPC last year. At that time attorneys, Robin Stoby, SC Rafiq Khan, SC, Andrew Pollard, SC, Rajendra Poonai, SC, Carole Boston, SC, Teni Housty, Horatio Edmondson, Onassis Granville, Kim Kyte-Thomas, Mandisa Breedy, Tracy Gibson, Lyndon Amsterdam, Dionne McCammon, Konyo Sandiford, Nikhil Ramkarran and Kashir Khan were appointed to the committee.
The LPC is the body established under the Legal Practitioners Act, Chapter 4:01 charged with hearing and determining complaints against Attorneys-at-Law with disciplinary powers. Lovell, in response to an open advertisement in November last year said, had said that allegations that the acting Chancellor of the Judiciary had failed in her “legal and moral duty” to appoint the members of the Legal Practitioners’ Committee (LPC) were erroneous. She explained that members of the LPC had decided that it can best serve the public by having the hearings conducted virtually. They had been working on mechanisms for same.
In order to fulfill its mandate, scheduling of hearings was being done even as complaints were being received. “We urge the members of the public who have complaints and grievances regarding practicing members of the Guyana Bar to feel free to lodge those complaints with the Legal Practitioners’ Committee at the Court of Appeal Registry, 60 High Street, Kingston, Georgetown”, she said.
