The Court of Appeal today upheld the decision of the Advocates and Solicitors Disciplinary Board, which found lawyers M Kayveas and his diplomat wife, guilty of misconduct.

A three-member panel comprising Low Hop Bing, Zainun Ali and Anantham Kasinater unanimously dismissed the couple's appeal against the disciplinary board's decision.

Low said the panel was unable to identify an appealable error on the part of the High Court to warrant its interference sitting in an appellate capacity.

He said there was no merit in the appeal.

kayveas ppp pc 120308 straight "We are of the view that the disciplinary board had not occassioned any jurisdictional error in the conduct of the disciplinary proceeding against the appellants," said the judge.

Low said, both the appellants were advocates and solicitors at the material time and they came within the scope of the Legal Profession Act 1967.

Kayveas, the People's Progressive Party (PPP) president (right) , and also former deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department, and his wife Blanche O'Leary, the high commissioner-designate to Papua New Guinea, were ordered by the board to pay a penalty of RM5,000 each on March 17, 2005, for misconduct by breaching terms of entrustment as stakeholders in a property sale and purchase transaction between two companies.

They lost in their appeal to the High Court which had, on Sept 10, 2009, upheld the board's decision.

The duo had named the Bar Council as the sole respondent in a civil appeal filed on April 14, 2005.

- Bernama