Immigration: Barrister was concerned about client’s wellbeing
A barrister who accidentally sent confidential information about an immigration client to a journalist without his permission has been fined £10,000.
A Bar disciplinary tribunal said members of the public “would be appalled to discover” that Shivani Jegarajah had shared with third parties “very sensitive material, albeit inadvertently”.
While no actual harm was caused, the tribunal agreed with the assessment by the journalist who received the information at the New Jurist, an international law magazine, that “leaking this sort of information and to the wrong sort of people, could also endanger the [lay client’s] life”.
Ms Jegarajah accepted that sending the information was reckless but the tribunal described her initial response to the Bar Standards Board (BSB) investigation as “aggressive”.
She told the BSB: “I’m always surprised at how readily the BSB entertain complaints against BAME [Black, Asian and minority ethnic] barristers.”
However, the tribunal said that later that day she changed her position, saying: “I recognise now that the issue concerns disclosure of documents and that the allegation is indeed serious.”
Ms Jegarajah was not represented at the hearing. She told the tribunal of personal and emotional pressures she was under at the time and was “in a distressed state on behalf of my client”, whom she feared could die if not released from detention.
She went on: “I lost sight of the need for balance and allowed myself to become overworked and frustrated by what I perceived as injustice.
“As a result, I failed to act in a measured, detached and professional manner and committed serious misconduct…
“It was utterly egotistical and arrogant of me to behave like a crusading, wilful superhero for justice. It was ridiculous. I became a caricature of an activist lawyer who believed they were fighting injustice everywhere…
“I should never again allow myself to become so emotionally involved in a case.”
The Bar tribunal heard that, in September 2019, “in the context of immigration matters”, Ms Jegarajah sent an email to a journalist that accidently included attachments disclosing “confidential information in relation to her client, without his permission”.
Ms Jegarajah admitted failing to act in the best interests of her client, failing to act with integrity, behaving in a manner likely to diminish public trust and confidence, and failing to keep her client’s affairs confidential. She also admitted recklessness.
The tribunal said her misconduct was not “the error of an inexperienced barrister”.
Called in 1993, she understood “the importance of confidentiality” and was both a pupil supervisor and founder of her own chambers.
A “serious aggravating feature” was a previous disciplinary finding that, in the context of a dispute within chambers in 2015, she “accessed the computer of another member of chambers without authority, obtained an email from the computer and distributed the email to other members of chambers”.
However, in mitigation, two days before the hearing she emailed the BSB, indicating that she would admit the charges, “and on the first day before us, she did so”.
At the time of sending the attachments, Ms Jegarajah was “in a passionate emotional and stressed state”.
Balancing the mitigating and aggravating features, the tribunal said it was “left with the unanimous view that this was a very serious breach of a barrister’s duty”.
But in a rare majority decision – it did not state whether this was the view of three or four of the five-person panel – the tribunal said that “in the circumstances of this case, the serious wrongdoing can be sanctioned by the imposition of a fine rather than a period of suspension”.
Ms Jegarajah was ordered to pay a fine of £10,000 and costs of over £7,700.