There have been extraordinary goings on at Holyrood this week – and I don’t mean more iPad-on-holiday revelations or sleazy claims two SNP politicians broke lockdown rules while having an affair. I’m referring to evidence put to the Scottish parliament’s equalities, human rights and civil justice committee on the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Bill, which aims to change the way legal services are regulated in Scotland.
The profession is regulated by the Law Society of Scotland, the Faculty of Advocates and the Association of Construction Attorneys, under the general supervision of the Lord President, Scotland’s most senior judge who presides over the Court of Session. The bill would radically reform this arrangement. Scotland’s senior judiciary has summarised it as the government proposing to ‘take into its own hands powers to control lawyers; remove aspects of the Court of Session’s oversight of the legal profession; and impose itself as a co-regulator along with the Lord President’.
In typical SNP style, the changes they have come up with attempt to introduce an element of central government control or influence where previously there was none
Ministers say the
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