Scottish government’s inept consultation interferes with rule of law
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The Scottish government’s proposed regulatory reform of legal services would remove power from the Court of Session in an “unacceptable interference by the government and parliament with the judiciary”, judges have said.
In a response to the consultation on Legal Services Regulation Reform, the judiciary said it was of “grave concern” that the consultation “fails to recognise suitably the constitutional importance of the Lord President and the Court of Session’s role in regulating the legal profession”.
The response questions the very need for regulatory reform too.
It states: “It is unclear to us on what basis wholesale regulatory reform to the legal services market in Scotland is necessary or appropriate. A new regulatory regime for the 21st century was put in place by the Scottish Parliament as recently as 2010 in the form of the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010.
“At this time, other models of legal services regulation were discounted by the Scottish Government in favour of the existing regime. It is perplexing that the Scottish Government is now reconsidering the regime which it put in place only just over a decade ago.”
The judges also took issue with the format of the consultation.
“A ranking or tick box exercise is simply an unacceptable way to deal with complex issues of such constitutional magnitude as the regulation of legal services in Scotland.”
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