Dear Editor,
The recent news of disciplinary action taken against two persons by the Medical Council of Guyana (MCG) caused me to compare provisions of the Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Act 2010 with the Medical Practi-tioners Act regarding the relationship between legal and medical practitioners and their res-pective clients. That relationship, known in the economics profession as a “principal-agent” one, is characterised by one party (the agent) having more or superior information and knowledge than that of the other party (the principal). It is the principal (i.e. the client or the patient) who is paying the agent (i.e., the lawyer or the doctor) to act on her behalf and in her best interests, but the principal has limited ability and opportunity to observe and monitor the actions of the agent. Things like the Hippocratic Oath, the emphasis on ethical behaviour and explicit codes of conduct are supposed to help to align the interests of the agents (i.e., the medical and legal practitioners) to those of the principals (the patients and clients), but in reality the two sets of interests diverge substantially. Out of respect for those outstanding persons in the medical and legal professions who embrace the highest standards, I refrain from elaborating on this divergence of interests.
A quick comparison of the medical and legal practitioners acts reveals the following differences in their respective provisions:
1. The Medical Practitioners Act (MPA) specifies clearly what are “offences” under the act, devoting an entire section to such offences; and it makes explicit mention of medical malpractice – the core principal-agent problem in the relationship between medical practitioners and patients – even though it does so under the section titled “Miscellaneous,” which deals with disciplinary proceedings.
2. The Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Act 2010 (LPA) does not have a section on offences. Rather, the LPA creates a Legal Practitioners Committee to hear ‘complaints’ against attorneys-at-law. In turn, complaints must refer to breaches of a Code of Conduct given in the LPA. The Code of Conduct however is not about the problems that arise from the principal-agent nature of the relationship between lawyers and their clients. It is instead meant to ensure that attorneys-at-law do not mislead the Court, though there is that somewhat vacuous and non-specific assertion that “Honesty, honour and reliability are the fountainhead of integrity.”
Breaches of the code of conduct are considered “professional misconduct,” and would attract merely “a reprimand or a fine not exceeding two hundred thousand dollars.” (Suspension and disbarment are mentioned as well, but unlike the MCG, the Com-mittee cannot suspend or remove an attorney-at-law from the Court Roll. The procedure for doing either of these is tortuous, protracted and very reassuring for any attorney-at-law against whom a complaint is made).
3. Finally in this quick and limited comparison, reference must be made to the composition of the Medical Council of Guy-ana and the Legal Practitioners Committee. The Medical Coun-cil comprises six medical practitioners appointed by the Minister after being duly “elected from among medical practitioners in Guyana,” with the Chief Medical Officer being an ex officio member of the Council. In contrast, the corresponding Legal Prac-titioners Committee comprises twelve attorneys-at-law appointed by the Chancellor “after consultation with the Bar Asso-ciation,” along with the Minister and Solicitor General as ex officio members.
What makes all the difference in the composition of the two bodies is that the Bar Association is an (unregistered) organisation that specifically represents the interests of attorneys-at-law (http://guyanabarassociation.org/about/). It stands to reason therefore that the attorneys-at-law who sit on the Legal Practitioners Committee, which is the only entity analogous to the Medical Council that can conceivably address concerns of a principal-agent nature, are going to represent the interests of their colleague attorneys-at-law when considering any complaints filed under the LPA..
Some time ago (March 22, 2024), I had written a letter bemoaning “the inability of the judicial system to monitor itself, to hold its officers accountable.” Whatever the merits of the cases, the disciplinary action against two doctors suggests that Guyana’s medical practitioners are willing and able to monitor themselves and to hold their colleagues accountable.
I hope that Guyana’s legal practitioners, instead of merely carrying Facebook posts about the action taken by the MCG, would consider it a lesson for themselves.
Yours sincerely,
Thomas B. Singh
