A Brisbane barrister who failed to disclose suitability matters for several years – including a conviction for contempt – will remain barred from practising.
Salvatore Di Carlo, 68, challenged a Bar Association of Queensland (BAQ) determination made in October this year that he was not a fit and proper person to hold a practising certificate (PC).
On Monday, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) in Brisbane confirmed BAQ’s decision, with Justice Bradley pointing to a litany of failures by the practitioner of more than 30 years’ experience.
Mr Di Carlo, who was admitted as a barrister in 1991, had been issued a PC by BAQ every year between 2004 and 2022. His most recent PC had been extended while a decision was made on his PC renewal application lodged in May 2023 (for the 2023/34 year) and June 2024 (for the 2024/25 year).
This PC was suspended in August this year, then his PC renewal application was refused in October, prompting Mr Di Carlo’s bid for a finding that he remained a fit and proper person to hold a PC, and an order requiring the BAQ to issue him such a certificate.
For six years, the barrister had failed to disclose a conviction and $4000 fine issued in August 2017 for contempt committed in the Magistrates Court.
Then Chief Justice Holmes remarked at that time: “The significance of this contempt is not just that it was an unseemly insult to the individual judicial officer. It was an affront to the court which he represents. … The particularly reprehensible aspect of this contempt is that it came from an officer of the court and one of very considerable experience … of all people, he should certainly, with that level of experience, have known much better than this.”
Justice Bradley said Mr Di Carlo told QCAT his conviction and punishment had “slipped his mind” when he applied to renew his PC.
“If this was true, it evidenced a staggeringly lack of regard for the significance of the conviction,” he said.
“In written submissions for the applicant, it was contended that this omission was of no importance, because he had disclosed the contempt charge in his previous PC renewal applications in 2017 and 2018.
“This submission reflected a failure to take the contempt conviction seriously. It was also misleading and disingenuous.”
Justice Bradley said in a PC application for 2023/24, Mr Di Carlo had also failed to disclose that he had an apparently acute mental health condition which had him hospitalised less than a fortnight before his renewal application.
This omission displayed “a lack of candour”, which the barrister did not rectify during the tribunal hearing, he said.
In that application, Mr Di Carlo also failed to disclose that a complaint to the Legal Services Commission (LSC) about payment of professional fees had been made against him in January 2023, which the LSC was investigating.
The apparent disregard of the complaint “indicated an inappropriate attitude towards complaints about his professional conduct” and misled the BAQ, Justice Bradley said.
When the LSC informed Mr Di Carlo in September 2023 that it intended to begin disciplinary proceedings against him, he gave an undertaking to the BAQ which required him to keep the association updated of any developments.
The barrister then breached that undertaking for more than eight months.
“I am satisfied that the applicant’s lengthy breaches of his undertaking indicated that he continued to give little respect to (the) complaint and that he gave even less respect to his undertaking to the association,” Justice Bradley said.
In August this year, when Mr Di Carlo failed to appear on a summons issued in relation to an unpaid loan of $240,000 – and instead travelled to China – a warrant was issued for his arrest.
“Frankly, a person served with a summons to appear can hardly have been less cautious or more reckless than to purchase an airline ticket 16 days after service of the summons and fly out of Australia to China three days before the date they are commanded to appear, intending to be absent from the country on that date,” Justice Bradley said.
“The steps he took to prepare to lodge a bankruptcy application (and apparently lodge it electronically from outside Australia) were expressly aimed at preventing the judgment creditor … from taking further steps against him consequent upon his failure to comply with the summons.
“I am satisfied that, by leaving the country shortly before the enforcement hearing, the applicant showed a public disrespect for the District Court and its processes.
“His apparent lack of understanding and appreciation of the nature and effect of his conduct marks his character.”
In relation to Mr Di Carlo’s bankruptcy application, Justice Bradley said the barrister had been behind in tax liabilities since about 2019.
“He knew the money he spent on any other thing was money he was denying the ATO. This was wrong. At best this was irresponsible or reckless. To describe it as an administrative failure is inadequate,” he said.
“Most right-thinking members of the community expect people to honour their obligations to meet their debts, if they can. The applicant’s failure to do so, over a long period, would lead most people to conclude he was not a fit and proper person to hold a PC.”
Justice Bradley said the tribunal had evidence of Mr Di Carlo’s conduct “over a reasonable period of recent time”.
“This covers the period from August 2017, when he was convicted of and punished for contempt, from 2019, when he seems to have stopped paying income tax and ceased remitting GST to the ATO, from 2023, when he was less than frank with the association about his mental health, failed to disclose a formal professional complaint, and breached his undertaking to the association for an extended period, to August 2024, when he defied the enforcement summons,” he said.
“There was a pattern to the applicant’s conduct. It has marked his responses from the contempt in 2016 to the association’s decision to suspend his practising certificate in August 2024.
“With the contempt charge, he retained leading counsel and was to vigorously defend himself. At the hearing, he admitted his guilt and submitted to the penalty.”
Justice Bradley said a person’s behaviour was the surest guide in assessing the genuineness of their remorse.
“Words unsupported by action leave unproven the genuineness of an expressed desire to change. The applicant’s recent remorse has this difficulty,” he said.
“Considering the matter afresh, on the merits, and using the evidence before it of the applicant’s previous behaviour and its causes, so far as is reasonably possible, the tribunal cannot be confident the applicant will follow the appropriate course of action in the future, nor that he could properly be entrusted to undertake the tasks that attach to the practise of a barrister in accordance with the demanding requirements under the LPA.”
Justice Bradley confirmed the BAQ’s decision, dismissed Mr Di Carlo’s application for review, and made no order as to costs.
Share this article