A Jamaican appellate court has upheld a professional misconduct ruling against Anthony Armstrong, a former Director of Public Prosecutions in Antigua and Barbuda, after finding that he falsely attested to witnessing a property transfer document.
According to Antigua.news, the Court of Appeal dismissed Armstrong's appeal against an earlier decision by the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council (GLC), which determined that the attorney had breached professional ethics rules governing legal practitioners in Jamaica.
The May 1 ruling affirmed that Armstrong violated Canon I(b) of the Legal Profession (Canons of Professional Ethics) Rules. That provision requires attorneys to uphold the honour and dignity of the legal profession and to avoid conduct that could bring it into disrepute.
The case originated from a complaint filed in 2019 by Michael Adams, who alleged that three of his Jamaican properties were sold without his knowledge while he was serving a prison sentence in the United States. The disciplinary committee, however, found insufficient evidence to establish fraud and accepted that Adams had authorised the sales.
The central issue before the court was Armstrong's admission that he signed transfer documents as a witness to Adams' signature despite the circumstances surrounding that attestation.
