AC-2025-MAN-000091 - [2025] EWHC 2048 (Admin)

As noted at [14] above the Appellant had conceded that the Tribunal should apply Version 6 of the Sanctions Guidance which came into effect on 1 January 2022. However under Ground 4 he argued that the Tribunal had erred in nevertheless failing to take into account the fact that the 2018 and 2020 misconduct had all occurred and been reported under the previous sentencing regime (or, properly, Sanctions Guidance); and it was the delays by the BSB which had led to Version 6 becoming applicable. The BSB had requested and been granted at least twelve adjournments without ever providing proper details as to why the additional time was needed.

As Ms Iyengar highlighted, the BTAS procedural rules and Sanctions Guidance documents are inevitably updated from time to time, as part of the proper administration of justice. The proper administration of justice includes the role which the Council of the Inns of Court plays in endorsing Sanctions Guidance. Consistent with this approach, Version 6 had been implemented. As the introduction to the document explained, the main changes since Version 5 included “revised ranges for particular sanctions; in particular, the lower end of the range for “Misconduct of a sexual nature” and for “Discrimination and non-sexual harassment” has been increased to 12 months suspension”. However, whilst intended to afford guidance, the document is “not prescriptive”: Tribunals are “free to depart from this Guidance where appropriate, but where that occurs, they must be sure they can, and do, explain their reasons with clarity”.

Where appropriate, transitional rules are deployed in order to avoid unfair prejudice. No relevant transitional rules existed which could disapply the Sanctions Guidance to cases heard after 1 January 2022. Accordingly, there is no doubt that the Tribunal was correct in applying Version 6. In those circumstances it is not entirely clear on what basis, or how, the Tribunal might properly have had regard to Version 5.

Further, the Tribunal rejected the Appellant’s submissions that the BSB’s delay had placed him in an unfair position, having analysed the chronology with care. This was a justified conclusion, for the reasons the Tribunal gave: see [54] above.

Even if the Tribunal should have had regard to Version 5, I do not accept that it is necessarily the case – as Mr Scamardella KC submitted – that disbarment would not have followed, given the serious and repeated nature of the misconduct here and the fact that the Sanctions Guidance is not prescriptive.

Accordingly, there was nothing wrong in the approach the Tribunal took to the applicable Sanctions Guidance.