Appeal Court Quashes Misconduct Finding Against Isat Buchanan Over 2020 DPP Remarks

The Court of Appeal has thrown out a professional misconduct ruling against attorney-at-law and Portland Eastern Member of Parliament Isat Buchanan over statements he made in 2020 about the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Former DPP Paula Llewellyn brought the complaint.

In its decision delivered this morning, the appellate court found that the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council handled parts of the matter unfairly and breached natural justice. The court also ruled that the committee made an error of law when it concluded that Buchanan had behaved in a way that was improper for a member of the legal profession.

The judges unanimously upheld Buchanan’s appeal in full. They cancelled the misconduct decision dated October 1, 2022, and removed all penalties the committee imposed on October 22, 2022. The GLC, Jamaica’s regulator for attorneys, was also ordered to cover Buchanan’s legal costs.

Justices Paulette Williams, Marcia Dunbar Green and Evan Brown heard the appeal last November. The matter is not the same as a separate GLC case tied to remarks Buchanan made about the DPP in 2023. In that later case, he admitted guilt but appealed a two-year suspension, which the Court of Appeal stayed in December 2023.

The case decided today stemmed from a November 2020 interview Buchanan gave to Loop News, the now-closed online news outlet. At the time, he was acting for dancehall artiste Adidjah ‘Vybz Kartel’ Palmer in a Privy Council challenge to Palmer’s murder conviction.

During that interview, Buchanan was quoted as saying the ODPP was "very dodgy and shady, and very deliberate in their action to continue to violate the constitutional rights of Adidja Palmer," as the defence continued a long-running fight over access to a mobile phone exhibit that was central to its case.

Llewellyn, then the DPP, lodged her complaint with the disciplinary committee in February 2021. In October 2022, the committee found that Buchanan breached Canon I(b) of the Legal Profession (Canons of Professional Ethics) Rules, which requires attorneys to "at all times maintain the honour and dignity of the profession". He was reprimanded.

Buchanan challenged that decision in November 2022, and arguments in the appeal were presented in May 2024. The Court of Appeal accepted two main complaints against the disciplinary committee’s ruling.

First, the court said the committee denied Buchanan natural justice by relying on the sub judice rule, which limits public comment on matters before the courts, without properly warning him that this was an issue he had to answer. Justice Williams said the complainant’s affidavits did not raise the sub judice point, and that the committee’s use of it without sufficient notice made the process defective.

"The committee acted unfairly and in breach of natural justice when it proceeded to consider the sub judice rule in circumstances where the appellant had received no proper prior notice that it would form part of the charges he would have to meet," Justice Williams wrote in the 47-page judgment.

On the second ground, the court held that the committee misunderstood how the sub judice rule should be applied, even if Buchanan had been given notice. The judges said the rule is mainly aimed at publications that create a real danger of affecting fair court proceedings, but the committee did not properly examine that question.

The appellate court said the committee instead created a new test of its own. It also noted that the committee had already found that Buchanan’s criticism of the DPP was made in good faith, was grounded in facts, and was reasonable.

Given those findings, the court said the committee could not use the same words to find a breach solely because of when Buchanan made them.

The court refused the committee’s request to send the case back for another hearing. It accepted Buchanan’s argument that doing so would let the committee repair a basic procedural flaw, which his attorney John Clarke described as giving it "a second bite of the cherry."

Maurice Manning KC and Allyandra Thompson represented the GLC’s disciplinary committee. They were instructed by Nunes Scholefield Deleon & Co.

Buchanan won the Portland Eastern seat for the People’s National Party in September 2025.