Alleged misuse of Solomons trusts ruining reputation
Updated
The Solomon Islands Bar Association has called for new laws on trust accounts after two lawyers were accused of misusing thousands of dollars of their clients' money. Charles Ashley and Charles Levo have both denied the charges. But the President of Solomon Islands Bar Association says the cases have damaged the profession's reputation.
Rodney Kingmele says at the moment there are no regulations governing how trust accounts are managed, and says that has to change.
Presenter: Stephanie March
Speaker: Rodney Kingmele, President of Solomon Islands Bar Association
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KINGMELE: The legal practitioners act of Solomon Islands has got provisions for the Chief Justice to make rules regarding the operation of trust accounts. But ever since the act was passed no regulations have been put in place regarding the operation of trust accounts, and then in the course of 2009 we had two members of the profession being charged with various offences relating to the misuse of trust funds. Obviously the people charged are still in the process, the matters are still in the courts so they obviously entitled to the presumption of innocence. But that's what really sort of prompted us to have a real look at trying to get regulations regarding trust accounts into place.
MARCH: And what sort of regulations do you think are required?
KINGMELE: Basically I think the most important one would be a requirement that makes it compulsory for a lawyer to operate the trust account. At the moment those few legal practitioners and firms which operate trust accounts are doing so voluntarily, they've set up trust accounts voluntarily, there was no regulation requiring them to setup trust accounts. And we think a lot of the practitioners now practicing in the Solomon Islands do not operate trust accounts and they're mixing client monies with their own funds, which is a no-no in respect to trust accounts.
MARCH: What's the purpose of a trust account?
KINGMELE: Well it's basically when sometimes clients give you money to hold in trust, perhaps they've entered into a contract to purchase some land and whilst the contract has been signed and the transfer's not yet happened they give you those funds to hold to handle the settlement or there are a lot of reasons why clients give monies to their lawyers to hold in trust. But obviously those funds are not meant for the lawyer's use. They are meant for some other use which the client has in mind, that's why he gives the money to the lawyer.
MARCH: You've said it seems in your impression the public has lost confidence in the profession. What gives you that impression?
KINGMELE: Well it's probably a generalisation because we've got very good lawyers, high profile and very capable lawyers within our profession. But the fact that some members of the profession have allegations made against them, the average man on the street would look at lawyers and have some suspicions at the back of his mind and probably if I give this lawyer my money he'll just use it and that's not something that we would like the public to have, that's not an opinion that the public should have of lawyers.
MARCH: Do you expect you'll encounter any resistance from the legal profession about these planned regulations?
KINGMELE: I don't expect to have much, as a matter of fact I'd be surprised if we encountered any opposition to any regulations that we plan to bring into place.
