Krishan Kumar Appellant v. The Law Society of Saskatchewan, 2015 SKCA 132

Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan Docket: CACV2464 Citation: Kumar v The Law Society of Saskatchewan , 2015 SKCA 132 Date: 2015-11-18 Between: Krishan Kumar Appellant And The Law Society of Saskatchewan Respondent Before: Ottenbreit, Caldwell and Herauf JJ.A. Disposition: Appeal dismissed (orally) Written reasons by: The Honourable Mr. Justice Herauf In concurrence: The Honourable Mr. Justice Ottenbreit The Honourable Mr. Justice Caldwell On Appeal From: Discipline Committee of The Law Society of Saskatchewan Heard: November 18, 2015 Counsel: Krishan Kumar on his own behalf Timothy F.

Huber for the Respondent Herauf J.A. [ 1 ] Krishan Kumar, the appellant, was disbarred from practicing law by a Law Society of Saskatchewan Discipline Committee. He was also prohibited from applying for reinstatement for five years. Finally, he was ordered to pay costs of $5000 (see 2013 SKLSS 4 ). [ 2 ] Mr. Kumar’s appeal to this Court, pursuant to s. 56 of The Legal Profession Act , 1990 , SS 1990-91, c L-10.1, was dismissed from the bench with a promise of written reasons follow. These are those reasons. [ 3 ] Mr.

Kumar entered guilty pleas to the following allegations of conduct unbecoming a lawyer: 1. did provide false or misleading information to the Law Society of Saskatchewan in his February 15, 2002 Application for Admission as follows: a. he failed to use his proper or legal name on the application; b. he failed to disclose his change of name to “Paul White”; and c. he failed to disclose prior disciplinary actions against him as Paul White in Washington State. Reference Code of Professional Conduct

Chapter I. 2. did provide false or misleading information to the Law Society of Saskatchewan in his August 18, 2003 Commencement Report by failing to disclose his membership in the Washington State Bar; Reference Code of Professional Conduct

Chapter I. [ 4 ] The evidence relating to the allegations was fully contained in a Statement of Admissions admitted to by Mr. Kumar. The Statement of Admissions is appended to this decision for ease of reference as “Appendix A”. The Statement of Admissions was the only evidence filed before the hearing committee of The Law Society of Saskatchewan. As a result of the agreed Statement of Admissions, the hearing committee determined that Mr. Kumar was guilty of conduct unbecoming a lawyer. The matter of sentencing was referred to the benchers as a whole, which constituted the Discipline Committee.

As already noted, the decision of the Discipline Committee to disbar Mr. Kumar was the only issue on this appeal. [ 5 ] Simply put, Mr. Kumar’s sole ground of appeal was that the sentence was too harsh. He maintained that since his conduct did not affect members of the public at large, a reasonable sanction should have been a suspension for a short period of time.

He also suggested, during his oral submissions to this Court, that The Law Society of Saskatchewan is partly to blame for not finding out about his disciplinary sanctions in Washington State at an earlier date. [ 6 ] We agree with The Law Society of Saskatchewan that the proper ground of appeal should be whether the sanction imposed by the Discipline Committee was reasonable. There was no dispute that the appropriate standard of review relating to a decision of this nature of reasonableness.

As noted by this Court in McLean v Law Society , 2012 SKCA 7 at para 11 : [11] The Supreme Court of Canada fixed the standard of review with respect to the imposition of penalties by Law Societies on lawyers for conduct unbecoming the profession in Law Society of New Brunswick v. Ryan , 2003 SCC 20 , [2003] 1 S.C.R. 247. According to Ryan , a reviewing court, such as this one, must look to the reasons of the Discipline Committee to determine whether its decision is reasonable (see para. 54).

The review, however, must be a meaningful one, having regard for the existence of justification, transparency and the intelligibility of the decision under review, and whether the decision falls within a range of possible, acceptable outcomes which are defensible in respect of the facts and law: Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick , 2008 SCC 9 , [2008] 1 S.C.R. 190 at para. 47 .

[ 7 ] We are satisfied that overall the Discipline Committee provided clear reasons and justification for its decision. At para. 12 of its decision, the Discipline Committee noted: … It goes without saying that in situations where the Member has provided false or misleading information to the Law Society, the Society’s ability to regulate the profession and to govern its membership in accordance with its statutory mandate is obstructed. Furthermore, regulatory bodies cannot protect the public in any meaningful way if they are not privy to accurate information concerning their Members.

From the viewpoint of the Membership in a professional society, the issue is one of integrity. Members must be candid and honest in dealing with their professional society in order to enable the society to function. The importance of integrity in the practice of law cannot be understated and as stated in the Law Society of Saskatchewan’s Code of Professional Conduct commentary to

Chapter I, “Integrity is the fundamental quality of any person who seeks to practise as a member of the legal profession.” and “The principle of integrity is a key element of each rule of the Code.” It should be noted that it is not necessarily every false or misleading admission or omission that will automatically lead to severe penalties but serious breaches of integrity should result in serious penalties in order to maintain the integrity of the legal profession and the public’s confidence in it . [Emphasis added] [ 8 ] Paragraph 23 also bears repeating: 23.

It is the opinion of this committee that the Member’s integrity breaches are serious in that they were designed to conceal his identity to gain admission to a professional body. For reasons already canvassed in this decision, such behaviour cannot be tolerated and must be generally deterred. [Emphasis added] [ 9 ] In a nutshell, while the sanction is harsh it is justified on the standard of reasonableness and should be shown deference. For these reasons, the appeal was dismissed. The Law Society of Saskatchewan did not request costs and none were awarded.