ARTICLE FROM THE MONTREAL GAZETTE REGARDING GCEI'S LARGEST SHAREHOLDER:
Justice slow at Bar Association
More than six years after entering into a conflict of interest and misappropriating $125,000, a Montreal-based lawyer is still practising law as he awaits his punishment. The long, winding path to disbarment for lawyer Kenneth Adessky reached another crossroads this week as the Quebec Bar’s disciplinary council met to hear arguments about what sanctions should be levied against him. It could be several more months before the council renders its decision, possibly revoking Adessky’s licence for six years. Adessky’s former client — the man who wired him that money back in mid-April 2008 — says the whole process is a clear example of how unnecessary bureaucracy and unenforceable rules are creating roadblocks for the victims of professional misconduct in Quebec.
More than six years after entering into a conflict of interest and misappropriating $125,000, a Montreal-based lawyer is still practising law as he awaits his punishment.
The long, winding path to disbarment for lawyer Kenneth Adessky reached another crossroads this week as the Quebec Bar’s disciplinary council met to hear arguments about what sanctions should be levied against him. It could be several more months before the council renders its decision, possibly revoking Adessky’s licence for six years. Adessky’s former client — the man who wired him that money back in mid-April 2008 — says the whole process is a clear example of how unnecessary bureaucracy and unenforceable rules are creating roadblocks for the victims of professional misconduct in Quebec.
“Everybody says, ‘We’re out to protect the public,’ but nobody believes it,” said Earl Takefman, who has dealt with officials from the Quebec Bar Association and its disciplinary council, the prosecutor’s office, the Office des professions du Québec and even the police in an effort to strip Adessky of his ability to practice law in Quebec. Every step of the way, Takefman said, there have been obstacles. It took two years before the bar’s disciplinary body agreed that Adessky may have done something wrong when he used Takefman’s $125,000 to keep his environmental company (Global Clean Energy Inc.) afloat instead of holding the money in trust until the company got regulatory approval.
It took 12 days of testimony heard over 14 months (a bizarre schedule apparently necessitated by clashing schedules among the lawyers involved in the case) and then another year of waiting before the disciplinary council — made up of a president appointed by the province and two other lawyers appointed by the Bar — found that Adessky had misappropriated his client’s funds and entered into a conflict of interest. The council acquitted him of several other alleged infractions.
The decision was made public last July, but the final hearing to argue over possible sanctions didn’t take place until last Monday — nearly a year later.
“I’ve been obsessed with this for six years … I admit it,” said Takefman, who was eventually compensated for his financial loses through the Quebec Bar’s indemnity fund. “My wife, my friends all say: ‘Move on with your life.’ But no, this is important.”
As his complaint wound its way through the bureaucratic jungle, Takefman also took his case to criminal court. In early 2012, a Quebec Court judge finally requested that the Crown review the file and determine if charges should be laid. The Crown’s decision is apparently still pending more than two years later.
“I just don’t get why nobody seems to feel as outraged as I am. That’s why it’s so frustrating when people say: ‘Yeah, that’s wrong’ … and then they can’t do anything about it.”
Takefman’s indignation is not unique. Two weeks ago, a woman in Ontario went public with a similar story, alleging that the province’s law society had failed to inform potential clients about the checkered past of lawyer Richard Chojnacki. The latter went to prison after pleading guilty to fraud in 2012, but the law Society of Upper Canada had been aware of Chojnacki’s alleged misdeeds since 2004. It would be 2010 before he was disbarred, and, according to a subsequent investigation by the CBC, he managed to fleece five clients out of nearly $5 million in the interim.
“I felt that (the law society) hung us out to dry,” said victim Maryann Cambruzzi in an interview with the CBC.
In Quebec, the detailed code that sets out the rules for professional orders (Code des professions) contains guidelines to help organizations like the Bar streamline the disciplinary process. If a professional body fails to adhere to the code, however, there is little anyone can do. The Office des professions du Québec has the power to monitor professional orders and can intervene to signal that the portion of the code is not being respected — but it “can’t get rid of the Bar,” said Lucie Boissonneault, who is in charge of communications for the Office des professions.
“Ours is a power of oversight,” she said.
The Bar, meanwhile, says the timelines for disciplinary action that are set out in the Code des Professions are “suggested,” not mandatory. In a statement emailed to The Gazette, spokesperson Martine Meilleur explained that the Bar must “schedule hearings rapidly while respecting procedural fairness. To do this, numerous criteria must be respected: the availability of rooms, the parties, the members of the disciplinary council, etc.”
As for Takefman’s complaint against Adessky, Meilleur said the Bar would not comment on any ongoing case.
In an effort to avoid similar lags in the future, Quebec has recently introduced Law 17. The legislation will change the system slightly so that the presidents of each order’s disciplinary council will work under a central office run out of the Office des professions.
That central office, according to Boissonneault, “will provide administrative support which will hopefully increase the rapidity of (disciplinary actions).”
But victims like Takefman and Cambruzzi want to see much bigger overhauls. In the United Kingdom, for instance, law societies were stripped of the power to police their own in 2010. An independent ombudsman was hired instead, something that has reportedly cut the amount of time it takes a complaint to work its way through the system in half.
Takefman says he simply doesn’t want anyone else to go through an ordeal like the one he has experienced.
“What if this had been a doctor or a nurse? … Is it acceptable to society and in the public’s interest for the system to take six years to deal with the crime?”
mmuise@montrealgazette.comTwitter: monique_muise
