Finlayson Christopher: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
Finlayson Christopher: Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:629;Page:1548] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 As the Minister in the chair the Hon Lianne Dalziel has said Part 7 is an extremely important part of the new legislation and in general terms I am very happy with what is proposed here. The public must be able to have their complaints dealt with justly above all but also expeditiously. So I am very pleased to see that with the demise of the old district law societies the New Zealand Law Society will be responsible for establishing and indeed has an obligation to establish a complaints service. 
The functions of the New Zealand Law Society in relation to the complaints service are usefully summarised in clause 111 and there are particular aspects of that clause I wish to emphasise. The complaints service must ensure throughout New Zealand both the consistency and the quality of the complaints service and that has not always been the case with district law societies. As I said before the dinner break sometimes very small law societies were simply incapable of providing that kind of consistent high-quality complaints service to the public. The second aspect is to provide assistance to lawyers standards committees and to the office of each such committee and if it is basically centralised even though there will be standards committees in other parts of the country that assistance will be greatly appreciated by the committees. The third aspect is to provide to the legal complaints review officer copies of any complaints that the Law Society receives. So in general terms those functions are I think well expressed and I believe that the new standards committees established by the Law Society will do a much better job than has hitherto been the case. 
I want to say just one or two things about the Legal Complaints Review Officer. Personally I wonder whether in fact it is necessary to have such an officer. The essence of a profession is that it is self-regulating—it regulates itself. I wonder whether this adds an unnecessary layer to the complaints process. As I said one of the key aims of a complaints process is to allow for an expeditious resolution of disputes and there are an awfully large number of layers in this part dealing with complaints. 
I note that the person who is to be the Legal Complaints Review Officer as provided by clause 171 is not going to be a lawyer or conveyancing practitioner. Indeed the criteria for appointment seem to contradict that. The Minister will have to have regard when appointing such a person to the person’s personal attributes—that is fair enough—the person’s knowledge of and experience in matters such as the law of New Zealand and the provision of legal services. The job description for that person—and I would be grateful for the Minister’s comment—as set out in clause 172 would tend to point in the direction of a person who is legally qualified. So I wonder how effective a non-lawyer will be in carrying out these functions and I wonder whether this part of the bill is absolutely necessary. 
Then we have the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal. That essentially replicates although there are some structural changes what is already contained in the Law Practitioners Act. That is a very important body and in the past it has carried out its functions very well. I have no doubt that this new tribunal will do exactly the same. 
The provisions that relate to appeals to the High Court thence to the Court of Appeal are all quite straightforward and I have no problems with them. I note that under section 66 of the Judicature Act an appeal to the Court of Appeal on a point of law is going to be the final appeal. 
The only other comment I wish to make is about clause 245 which seems to have gone through some changes when it was at the Justice and Electoral Committee. It talks about the inherent jurisdiction of the court—I think the words were changed from “summary”—and it provides that nothing shall affect the inherent jurisdiction and powers of the High Court and barristers and barristers and solicitors. In actual fact the words “and powers” are totally unnecessary. The High Court has an inherent jurisdiction. An inferior court such as the District Court will have some inherent powers but does not possess an inherent jurisdiction but it is completely otiose and an example of—