Barrington E. Frankson

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Mrs Monica Whitter, living in England, instructed her son Basil Whitter to make a professional misconduct complaint on her behalf against her former attorney Barrington Frankson under section 12 of the Legal Profession Act (Jamaica). The Disciplinary Committee struck Frankson off the roll and ordered restitution. The Court of Appeal of Jamaica (by majority) held the Committee had no jurisdiction because section 12 required the aggrieved person (Mrs Whitter) to swear the affidavit personally. The Privy Council held this was too narrow a construction: under the principle qui facit per alium facit per se, a person may authorise an agent to make the application and affidavit unless the statute expressly requires personal signature. The appeal was allowed with costs and remitted to the Court of Appeal to hear the merits, with a stay of the Committee's orders. No dishonesty or misconduct finding was made by the Privy Council.