Page 1733 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 6 June 2006
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A glaring example of this is contained in subclause 394 (4). By removing judicial review rights, privative clauses can represent direct threats to a citizen’s protection from arbitrary or malicious administrative decisions. The explanatory statement should provide an explanation as to why the law society should have the unreviewable powers given to it under clause 349. It may well be perfectly justifiable, but the government should acknowledge that privative clauses are troublesome beasts and it should at least attempt to offer a justification whenever one is proposed.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (11.11), in reply: Mr Speaker, I thank members for their support of this legislation. When I presented this bill in the Assembly on 4 May, I said that it reflects an unprecedented level of cooperation between state and territory legal professional bodies. I think members would agree that it also reflects a very high level of cooperation and goodwill within the local legal profession.
A significant amount of hard work and compromise has been required to bring this legislation before the Assembly, much of which has involved the Law Society of the ACT and the ACT Bar Association achieving agreement on the means of implementing a number of difficult aspects of this national model in the ACT. Again I would like to thank both of those bodies and other involved in this project for their significant work.
I also mentioned when I presented this bill that members of the Assembly would be invited to seek briefings on the bill from officers of my department, and I understand that that has worked successfully with officers providing briefings to members of the opposition and crossbench.
This bill is not a bill to reform all aspects of legal practice. Its objectives, rather, relate to the governance and regulation of the legal profession itself, rather than the processes that are generally undertaken by legal practitioners. It does not, for example, address questions such as the circumstances in which a legal practitioner may or may not commence legal proceedings for the recovery of damages. That would be dealt with in legislation such as the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act or the Court Procedures Act.
It is worth making the observation, though, that this bill draws some nationally common boundaries around acceptable conduct on the part of legal practitioners. It sets out what constitutes unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct and the general methodology for dealing with complaints and misconduct. Like the act it repeals, the bill envisages legal professional rules providing much of the procedural and behavioural guidance to practitioners. For that reason, the rules for both solicitors and barristers are formally created or given formal recognition in schedule 1 as the rules which, from 1 July this year, will be amended according to a more formal and public process.
Aside from rules about behaviour and process, regulations will, of course, provide for much of the detailed procedural requirements under this new legislation. Those, like the bill, are being developed from an agreed national model. They will not introduce new policy initiatives, but will implement the policy framework set out in the bill.
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