Posted by: transparencynz | December 18, 2017

The secret Law Society Disciplinary Committees

Following on from the previous post

As we saw   the law society   nurtures and disciplines its own members, this  can be like the  mother of a very spoilt  child  , if the child is a favourite its a case  of  Now Johnny you go and be a good boy mummy will be very cross if you do that again .  or if  the child  is  not liked  a step  child or a foreign lawyer for example  then   there will be a crucifixion   so that a message is sent to the  others and to show that the system is working .

The  disciplinary side of the law society is  undertaken  through statute, the lawyers and conveyancers act .

The conflicting roles of the law society are set in statute .. statute is written by lawyers   and  as with the animal welfare  Act, there is concrete evidence that statutes are written  and advised on by lawyers .

(The animal welfare act , no 1 bill was written by Barrister Neil Wells  to facilitate his own business plan, he advised on this as independent advisor to the select committee without declaring his conflict of interest   )

The resulting swiss cheese legislation has sufficient holes for the lawyers to crawl through  and evade the intention of the law.

section 65  sets out the  Regulatory functions 

The regulatory functions of the New Zealand Law Society are—

(a)to control and regulate the practice in New Zealand by barristers and by barristers and solicitors of the profession of the law:

(b)to uphold the fundamental obligations imposed on lawyers who provide regulated services in New Zealand:

(c)to monitor and enforce the provisions of this Act, and of any regulations and rules made under it, that relate to the regulation of lawyers:

(d)to monitor and enforce, throughout the period specified in any order made under section 390, the provisions of this Act, and of any regulations and rules made under it, that relate to the regulation of conveyancers:

(e)to assist and promote, for the purpose of upholding the rule of law and facilitating the administration of justice in New Zealand, the reform of the law.

It is my experience that the  law society  is very poor at holding lawyers accountable to the rule of  Law    and that is where  our entire justice system falls  down . Close enough is not good enough , lawyers  are officers of the court and as such   have higher obligations to truth and honesty  than the average Joe Bloggs  , and we all know that  many lawyers  don’t know the definition of truth.

In a recent decision from the law society the society stated that

The lawyer is an agent for the client in conducting the client’s affairs. The lawyer is obliged to follow the instructions of the client where it is consistent with their professional duties. The lawyer has a duty of absolute loyalty to the client and may not have regard for the interests of third parties except insofar as they are consistent with his or her own instructions and relevant to the protection and promotion of the interests of his or her own client.”

This may be true  but  this is surely limited to   being an officer of the court first  this  is spelled out in  section 4  of the act

the obligation to protect, subject to his or her overriding duties as an officer of the High Court and to his or her duties under any enactment, the interests of his or her clients.

This  to me at least makes it clear that the  lawyers primary obligations are to the court  and  he has a duty not to mislead the court or to use the court for an improper purpose .

Time and time again we see   that lawyers  are not being held accountable   to the rule of law  and because they know that  this particular bit of the rules is purposely overlooked they use it  to abuse the use of the court.

In these hard time of lawyers being paid upward of $250  per hour  its about winning ,  no matter how. When   a group of  people   are backing each other up and  no one is being  held accountable to the rule of law then  injustice   reigns.

As a result  it is our observation  that the new Zealand courts have become extremely unsafe .

When a lawyer  steps out of line the first step is to  make a complaint to the law society .

We made a complaint against a lawyer in April 2016, the  quote above came from the decision which was delivered by an anonymous group of people represented with the name and signature of only  one barrister who signed the decision  on 28 November 2017 .

Law  society  disciplinary  committees  are made up of up to seven lawyer members and two lay members , however  the standards committees appear to work   from a position of total anonymity aside from a requirement to notify the minister of the appointment 

Standards committees are set up under section  126  of the act , they appear to be  are totally anonymous  and  are in reality not a legal structure which is capable of being sued or suing,  but   they are regularly represented in court proceedings as if they have  every right of a legal or natural person .

Standard committees in effect are nothing more than  a trading name given to a  group of unidentified persons  , at best it is an unincorporated group and the  rules in law dictate that  they  should be treated as naming the individuals  as members of the what ever trust  or committee.

The decisions  of the committees are listed here look at them the  majority have the lawyers names anonymised despite the fact that many lawyers  who have come to their attention  have  committed real crimes and have never been held accountable  in  another court .

There is a good chance that the  lawyers on the   disciplinary committees   are connected to  the  lawyer  under review  due to them  belonging to a secondary alliance   whihc many law firms  have formed for example

 NZ LAW Limited which is according to the companies office  jointly owned by 55 lawyers , this  from this link 

This is not the only   law firm made up  of many others , there are also  LAW ALLIANCE NZ LIMITED 34 share holders   and LARGE LAW FIRMS GROUP LIMITED 9 share holders  and probably more .

All in all there is nothing at all transparent about  the disciplinary process  , it behind closed doors and as seen  with the example   takes  a very long time for a complain to come out the other end  1 year 7 months   in the example above .

the decision is delivered with this  note

Decisions of the Standards Committee must remain confidential between the parties unless the Standards Committee directs otherwise. The Standards Committee has made no such direction in relation to this matter.

But  despite the  fact that  they decide to back their lawyer members up  for not  complying with the rule of law  there is  an avenue open to appeal their decision  and that is through  the LCRO       and that is even more fascinating.. to be continued

 


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