Earlier this year, the Law Society, along with other organizations, encouraged government to provide more information to the public and the legal professions about the proposed legislation to create a single legal regulator for all BC legal service providers.
The government has now published an update to its Intentions Paper describing how a number of the objectives set out previously would be met by the proposed legislation.
While the update is welcome, the Law Society remains concerned that there has not been sufficient recognition and protection of the necessary independence of the new legal regulator from government. In particular, the Law Society questions whether the proposed legislation meets the expectations stated some years ago by Justice Willard Estey of the Supreme Court of Canada that, “regulation of these members of the law profession by the state must, so far as by human ingenuity it can be so designed, be free from state interference, in the political sense, with the delivery of services to the individual citizens in the state, particularly in fields of public and criminal law.”
Justice Estey’s statement relies on the principle of lawyer independence that is fundamental to protect the rights and freedoms of the public and uphold the rule of law. As legal professionals represent clients whose interests diverge from those of government, they must trust that the body that regulates them is independent of government influence. Any erosion of this principle in BC may have detrimental impacts provincially and nationally.
The Law Society continues to encourage government to take time to ensure the future regulation of legal professionals recognizes and protects necessary independence and to address the Law Society’s concerns about the degree of mandated direction and prescription the proposed legislation is expected to contain.
