The legal profession has abused the privilege of self-regulation and is incapable of dealing with complaints and setting its own fees, according a dissenting report on the cost of justice in Australia.
The report was published yesterday by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
The main recommendations included one for the Bureau of Statistics to collate information about the profession and its costs.
Others included an on-going reference to the committee to monitor the profession; that courts and other legal bodies report annually on costs and that there be an annual public legal forum.
The dissenters, Labor’s Chris Schacht and the Democrats’ Sid Spindler, agreed with those, but disagreed with the committee’s statements about self-regulation and costs.
“”The evidence before the committee demonstrates in the clearest terms that legal profession is incapable of self-regulation, particularly in the setting of its prices and in the handling of complaints against its members,” they said.
Complaints were dealt with furtively, far from the public eye. It had to change.
“”Lawyers’ fees and complaints about professional conduct must be handled by organisations outside the influence and control of the legal profession,” they said. These organisations should report through Parliament to the community.
They dissented from the committee’s finding that the committee had received little evidence of significant general growth in real fees in recent years.
“”The legal profession has not been asked, or has not been willing, to provide information about legal fees in a useful form,” they said. “”However, anecdotally the evidence is that the legal fess fees charged by the most respected in the profession have risen astronomically, way beyond the cost of living, and way beyond the comprehension of ordinary clients.
“”It is the rage felt by the community at the level of those fees that prompted this Senate inquiry. It is a rage that the profession has still to come to grips with.
An independent tribunal with consumer representation was needed to set fees as a first urgent step.
The majority said the Executive should use its role as a large user of legal services to force quality work at reasonable prices.
The Parliament should enact fewer laws and in plainer English.
In 1991 it passed 270 per cent more legislation than in 1980.
(In fact it produced a record 6905 pages in 1991.)
“”It is difficult to establish how much of this legislation has been necessary or reasonable, but a considerable proportion has clearly been made without regard to the costs that result _ costs which are ultimately borne by the community,” the committee comprising eight legislators said.
“”Parliament does not come to the issue with clean hands,” they said.
They called for wider use of non-lawyers in conveyancing.
The committee said members of the community should make greater efforts to resolve their own disputes without going to lawyers and should not use the courts to pursue their own personal grudges.