Letter: Independent regulator is a slur on Faculty

The Faculty of Advocates is, understandably, opposed to the suggested independent regulator for legal services in Scotland. I am not and never have been a member of Faculty and so I am independent in the true sense. I am not in the Dean’s pocket, nor is he in mine.

An essential question, as the Dean says, is what is wrong with the current system? The proposal is not only a slur on the Faculty as a whole, and its office bearers, past and present, to infer that they should not be allowed to deal with entry to the Faculty etc., but it is a slur on judges to take from them an important role in relation to those who appear in the courts — all courts.

It is, for me, naive to think that the independent regulator will be wholly independent of government. It may, for example, be told that there are not enough of this type in the legal profession and we must have a fair representation of the community. In my opinion, the Scottish government wants this new body so that it can control every aspect of the provision of legal services, whether they have any knowledge of the system or not. Goodbye, independent legal profession. For them, or some of them, the legal profession is “elitist” and every member went to a fee-paying school and, so, they will be “out of touch” with what “the ordinary person needs” and other such nonsense.

The final point is why just the provision of legal services? Why not have a series of bureaucratic and expensive bodies to control doctors, dentists, teachers, vets and every other profession?

Any why just professions? A “cowboy” builder, for example, can cause financial ruin. “That way madness lies”. Thankfully, I have just destroyed my chances of being on this “independent” regulatory body.

Douglas J. Cusine