A LEGAL issues campaigner who has long argued the case for greater regulation of the Scottish legal profession has dismissed the Scottish Government’s independent review of how legal services are regulated.
Peter Cherbi, who has had one of his petitions on legal regulation discussed and debated by a Scottish Parliamentary committee for more than four years, describes the latest review as “the usual suspects gathering to award lawyers a medal for looking after their own”.
Though the review panel appointed by legal affairs minister Annabelle Ewing has a non-lawyer as chair – Esther Roberton, chair of NHS 24 – no less than eight of the dozen members are practising lawyers or members of legal industry organisations, including Neil Stevenson, chief executive of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC).
Only one of the panel, Trisha McAuley, is recognised as an expert on consumer protection.
Launching the review, Ewing said: “Members of the public must be able to have confidence in the service they get from their solicitor. While this happens most of the time, I have been listening carefully to concerns that the current regulatory system in Scotland may leave consumers exposed and does not adequately address complaints.”
Cherbi told The National: “If an inquiry into self-regulation of the legal profession is to go anywhere or be seen to be transparent and unbiased, perhaps including people from outwith the closeted, carefully crafted world of Scotland’s legal establishment would see the public have more confidence in such enquiries.
“This latest attempt is the third go at reforming self regulation of the legal profession after the 2003 ‘Regulation of the legal profession’ inquiry and the 2006 Justice 1 Committee Consideration of Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 which created the ‘dead man walking’ SLCC that is little more than a front for the Law Society of Scotland.
“Now we have more legal eagles to that say legal eagles can look after their own.
“While there are thankfully many solicitors and criminal defence agents who work tirelessly for their clients, and do the right thing, regulation should not remain with the legal profession or the SLCC.
“In England and Wales, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Legal Ombudsman are streets ahead of the SLCC.”
and that old rickety shop known as the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal, which only managed to strike off six solicitors in the past year.
“Well, surely we can learn from our mistakes of the past and make sure the public have a majority say and role in the Scottish Government’s latest inquiry into how lawyers regulate themselves - after all, it is the public in terms of clients and consumers, and £140m of legal aid subsidies which keep the legal profession in the manner to which the few lawyers and QCs at the top have become accustomed to.
“For me, this review should be about protecting legal services, the trust people ought to have in their solicitor, and being at ease with legal services in Scotland the public can depend on to protect our freedoms and legal rights against big business and vested interests, not least, the vested interests of a self-serving justice system which has for centuries, served itself very, very well.”
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