THE PROPOSED Legal Services Regulatory Authority should contain representatives of university law departments, the Standards in Public Office Commission, the Ombudsman and similar bodies, rather than nominees of the Minister for Justice, in order to ensure its independence, said a leading academic.
David Gwynn Morgan, professor emeritus of law in UCC, told a conference of the Woman Lawyers Association on the Legal Services (Regulation) Bill, that the legal profession needed a strong regulatory authority, rather than self-regulation.
He said there were a number of precedents for such bodies in Ireland, including the Medical Council and the Veterinary Council, where only a small number of the members were nominated by the relevant Minister.
He said that the new authority needs to settle a lot of major policy issues within the first 12 months, and have proposals on a unified legal profession within 24 months. “Who the Minister chooses for the regulatory authority will have a significant effect on the formulation of these policies,” he said.
Ken Murphy, director general of the Law Society, said the Minister had not given any reason why he was pursuing a regulatory model different from that proposed in the Competition Authority report, whose implementation was sought by the EU/IMF Memorandum of Understanding.