Page 4557 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 14 December 1993
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It is a matter of keeping all legislation under constant review and making sure that the advice we get is relevant and up to date and reflects the community we live in. I think Mr Humphries is right to raise that issue, and all I can do is undertake to ensure that that review is maintained.
Bill, as a whole, agreed to.
Bill agreed to.
LEGAL PRACTITIONERS (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
Debate resumed from 25 November 1993, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.40): Madam Speaker, I do not wish to speak for long on this Bill. Unlike the previous Bill, at least on my advice, it is the product of considerable discussion and negotiation between the Government, or agencies of the Government, and the Law Society of the ACT, the most directly affected part of the community. It reflects, I understand, considerable agreement between those bodies on what is the best way of ensuring that the legal profession in the ACT is highly accountable and properly regulated in a way which provides a high quality of service to people who use solicitors.
Much of the Bill is schedules, which provide for the updating of the language of the Act and otherwise achieve what I might call some superficial improvements to the structure of the Act. The substance of the Bill deals with the regulation of complaints against solicitors; the capacity of the ACT to ensure that people who are solicitors and who become, for example, bankrupt, or apply for some scheme of arrangement for their affairs, are able to have the affairs of their clients protected properly, that is, through the appointment of managers and other procedures provided for in the Act. It also ensures that it is clear what matters may be dealt with by the Law Society under its jurisdiction, which is a traditional jurisdiction in the ACT at least, to provide for regulation of the affairs of solicitors. The Law Society is in a perhaps privileged position in being able to say to its members, "You will adhere to certain principles", and those principles are in a sense a reflection of the standards which the profession itself tries to uphold.
The Law Society presently has a disciplinary committee which this Bill retitles the Professional Conduct Board. The Bill sets out clearly the sorts of professional behaviour which would not be acceptable in terms of ethical conduct of solicitors, and it provides for regulation by the Law Society through its Professional Conduct Board of that kind of behaviour. Madam Speaker, for the most part the legislation is a reflection of that tightening up of the arrangements, providing for some flexibility, but also ensuring a greater degree of protection for individuals who use lawyers in this city.
I put on record very briefly that the provisions, particularly proposed new section 24 of the Act, provide for professional misconduct including conduct that would be contrary to that which a fit and proper person to remain on the roll of barristers and solicitors would engage in. My party is not in favour of broad-ranging terms like "fit and proper person" because they end up being a catch-all phrase which necessarily allows administrators, bureaucrats, or in this
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