Page 5078 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 17 November 2009
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the Law Society to be able to control the actions of the investigators it appoints reflects the self-regulating nature of the legal profession. If the investigators were public servants working under the direction of a government department, this level of control would be implicit. Public servant investigators are required to comply with any guidelines and internal policies that they are employed under. However, the Law Society is, as I have discussed earlier, a non-government regulator, and the investigators it appoints are private.
The overarching structures of the public service do not apply, and the Law Society should appoint investigators subject to any conditions it deems appropriate. These provisions will protect lawyers from improper investigation techniques being used, and will give guidance to investigators. This will make for better investigations and further protect the interest account from compensation claims.
In conclusion, a well-regulated legal profession is important to the justice system. Individuals need to have confidence that any complaints they lodge will be investigated, and the broader community need to see that high standards are set for all officers of the court. This bill improves the existing regulation of the legal profession in the ACT, and, on that basis, the Greens do support it.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (11.27), in reply: I thank members for their support of this bill. The Legal Profession Amendment Bill makes a number of uncontroversial and simple amendments to the Legal Profession Act 2006. Changes to the provision for entry and search of premises are, however, sufficiently significant to warrant their presentation in separate legislation.
As I indicated when I presented the bill, the Legal Profession Act is the culmination of several years of hard work by all of the states and territories, but it is inevitable that, from time to time, legislation will require amendment. In this case, the Law Society of the ACT identified a significant risk to the society’s long-term funds if investigations were to be carried out using the existing provisions in the act. Those funds are, as members will know, applied, among other things, to the improvement of legal education and the provision of funding to legal services such as Legal Aid ACT and a range of community-based providers.
The amendments proposed in this bill simply ensure two things: first, it is plain that an investigator who acts overzealously in entering or searching premises can potentially cause significant loss to a law practice. That loss under the existing provisions would be recoverable from the Law Society’s funds. Investigators operating within the public sector environment are subject to close direction and to the provisions of the Public Sector Management Act. In contrast, once the Law Society has appointed an investigator, it can no longer direct an investigator so that, provided the investigator complies with the act, the investigator may conduct the investigation in any way he or she thinks fit. It is, therefore, necessary that the Law Society, whenever it decides to conduct an investigation, is able to direct and control the activities of those it employs to do the work.
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