Should Government Be Able To Rewrite The Rules For The Law Society?

Well, this is the continued litigation over changes that the provincial government has been trying to make to the regulation of lawyers.

There's an act called the Legal Profession Act that's been in place for decades that deals with the regulation of lawyers, ethical conduct, rules of practice, educational requirements, that kind of thing.

And the provincial government has passed the same thing with an S on the end, the Legal Professions with an S on the End Act.

It was otherwise referred to as Bill 21.

And it makes a bunch of changes to the regulatory scheme, including things like changing what the object of the law society is.

It currently includes things like upholding and protecting the legal rights and freedoms of all people in British Columbia.

And they've replaced it with things like implementing drip-ups.

And the other changes involve the government trying to have more control over who operates the law society and makes rules for them.

Lawyers are currently a self-governing profession independent of the government, which is an important principle because often the government is on the other side of litigation.

And so the challenge involves whether that concept, the independence of the legal profession, is a constitutional requirement, and if so, does these changes breach that? That's the legal issue.

The political issues would be, is this a good idea? But I guess that'll be answered by the electorate, although I'd rather imagine people who's recovering from forest fires or are waiting in the emergency department, perhaps the fact that you might want to have an independent lawyer may not be top of the mind for them.

But nonetheless, this is one of the things which has been a political issue.

So

the case goes to the Court of Appeal.

It's scheduled to run November 16th and 17th.

But what's just occurred is an application by these 12 different groups to try to intervene in that appeal, wanting to participate in the appeal.

And that is indeed a thing.

And in the case of appeals in British Columbia, there's a particular court of appeal rule, number 61 for those paying attention at home, that dictates when and in what circumstances a group would be able to intervene to participate in an appeal.

And so that's what was just dealt with.

And so the case also deals with that.

It starts with a proposition that there are two categories of individuals or groups that might be allowed to participate in an appeal.

And the first of those is if the person or group has a direct interest in the matter, like the outcome will just directly affect them.

And then the second category would be, even if it won't directly affect

them,

is it a circumstance where it would be in the public interest to, if there's a public interest in a public law issue, like a broader issue that affects the public generally? And would that group or individual bring a different and useful perspective on those issues to be assessed by the court? And so that's a broader category.