Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to speak about an issue that has been raised to me by my constituents. It is with regard to the discipline of lawyers and the regulating organization that they have which is complaint-driven.
Mr. Speaker, the legal profession is a self-regulating industry, not unlike many other professions out there. This means that the lawyers have the ability to govern their own admission requirements. It also means they can govern their membership requirements, as well as decide their own discipline on alleged allegations of misconduct.
Mr. Speaker, the public truly has no role to play at all. The discipline proceedings are done entirely by lawyers. The only role that the public truly has is to lay a complaint. They can be a witness to proceedings, but they have no true involvement. The capacity to govern itself is not truly in question there. But it is the ability of honouring that privilege and trust. Mr. Speaker, it is not a right. The privilege and trust must be safeguarded by a fair process that does take the public interest into hand.
Mr. Speaker, in a discipline proceeding, lawyers must be ever mindful of being careful not to look after their own. Mr. Speaker, the onus on them regulating their own process is to ensure the safeguards of the public are there.
In order for us to ensure maximum public confidence, Mr. Speaker, this process must be under an automatic review when a lawyer is convicted of an offence. Mr. Speaker, there should be a requirement put into the act, not talked about as a willy-nilly policy. It would help this profession to enable self-regulating which wouldn't change if we made sure that lawyers convicted of all crimes go under a review process.
Mr. Speaker, this small step in legislation is not a big requirement to change the system to ensure public confidence. Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time, I will have questions for the appropriate Minister, and I will have some solid suggestions for him to address this public confidence question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause