The president of the Law Society has said he does not favour selfregulation of the legal profession. "I don't; we don't," he said. He called for independent regulation, in which solicitors would play their part. Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Editor, reports.
At the annual Justice Media Awards ceremony in Dublin, which followed a meeting of the Council of the Law Society, James MacGuill said: "We don't and won't promote self-regulation."
His remarks come as the regulation of the legal profession takes centre stage in the wake of revelations concerning solicitors Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne, who are at present before the courts, owing tens of millions of euros to various banks. The Law Society has closed down both practices.
Referring to remarks earlier this week by the Master of the High Court, Edmond Honohan SC, he said the remarks clearly referred to these cases which were the subject of society investigations and proceedings brought by the society.
Accordingly, it would be entirely wrong for him to make any comment about what Mr Honohan had said.
Last month Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil he did not think self-regulation, as it had operated, best served the public interest.
"Total self-regulation does not provide the impression that the public interest is best served in a transparent way, notwithstanding the fact that the overwhelming majority are doing a good job." the Taoiseach said.
He said the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform was examining other models of regulation, including that applying to the accountants' profession.
Mr MacGuill said last night that solicitors favoured having appropriate regulation of the profession by others, in which they would play their part. "The single greatest threat to the independent legal profession is not the form of regulation that applies; it's the perception that regulation is ineffective, that it's self-serving. . . that it's geared to the profession, not the consumer."
He welcomed the fact the Government had recently indicated that it intended to take from the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill those sections dealing with the regulation of legal services and bring forward a separate stand-alone legal services Bill.
"The Law Society warmly welcomes this approach as it will provide the opportunity for more focused analysis of what is required to meet the needs of the future."
Referring to the fact that "opinion formers and other commentators assume that the legal profession supports self-regulation", he said: "I don't, and I believe most people in the profession are not supporters either . . . We don't, and won't, promote self-regulation."
Stressing it was misleading to describe the current system of regulation as self-regulation, he said: "The system can be improved, however, and we welcome the draft legislation which will introduce a legal services ombudsman together with a non-lawyer majority on the society's complaints and client relations committee to further increase in the public interest the independence, transparency and accountability of the system . . . we will play our part in that.
"I believe it is now timely that we have this review by the Oireachtas. The profession and public must be satisfied that our systems and standards have the most appropriate and best public protection measures."
He said the issues affecting the profession were complex and that the Law Society was committed to consultation . . . He said solicitors must demonstrate and prove that they were the leaders in the protection of the public interest.
"We work in a profession where we help people in the most critical parts of their lives . . . They depend on the excellence of the service we provide, the relationship of trust we have with them, the relationship of trust that every solicitor in this room guards so dearly."