THE GOVERNMENT is divided on the contents of the new legal services Bill, which is due to be brought to Cabinet tomorrow, The Irish Timeshas learned.
Certain Labour Ministers in particular are concerned some of the proposals contained in the Bill from Minister for Justice Alan Shatter concentrate too much power in the hands of the Minister and could compromise the independence of the legal profession. Some Fine Gael Ministers are also unhappy with the proposals.
Reform of legal services is one of the terms of the agreement with the EU/ECB/IMF and the Government’s proposals are due by the end of the week.
The Memorandum of Understanding negotiated with the troika required the implementation of the outstanding recommendations of the Competition Authority 2006 report and the establishment of a regulatory body for the legal professions.
However, the proposed Heads of Bill prepared by Mr Shatter, which run to several hundred pages, are thought by some Labour Ministers, including Ruairí Quinn and Joan Burton, to go beyond the requirements of the EU/ECB/IMF and the Competition Authority.
The disquiet is focused on proposals to have the members of the regulatory body appointed by the Minister for Justice and thereby answerable to him, and to provide for multidisciplinary partnerships (MDPs) that would allow barristers and solicitors set up partnerships or practices with other professionals.
There are fears this would make lawyers primarily answerable to the clients of such partnerships and undermine their primary duty to uphold the law and tell the truth to the court, thus undermining the independence of the legal professions and ultimately the legal system.
The Competition Authority did consider MDPs in its preliminary report on the legal professions, but did not recommend them in its final report, where it stated: “Multidisciplinary practices ... raise regulatory issues. These issues encompass public policy issues not limited to competition and require further examination by a wider group of stakeholders.
“The Competition Authority recommends that these issues be explored by the Legal Services Commission.”
A legal services commission with a lay majority was a central recommendation of the authority, which envisaged it as the overarching regulatory body for the legal professions. Under the Memorandum of Understanding, this is described as an independent regulator.
However, the authority did not recommend it report to the Minister or to Government; rather that it should be “independent, transparent and accountable”, involving a wider group of stakeholders than at present, where the Law Society and the Bar Council regulate members.