I have practised law in Victoria coming on to 37 years. Over my long and wonderfully rewarding legal career, I have observed the propensity of socialist governments, invariably for their own mischievous purposes, try to paint lawyers as greedy villains.
For many years I have dutifully collected PST on all the legal fees I charged. My clients paid every cent of that tax. It became just another line on their legal bill. True, the personal injury lawyers were put out of business, but that was on the backs of citizens who now just pay a tax to drive. One most certainly does not require the services of a lawyer when there is no claim to pursue.
The proposed legislation fails to protect the public’s interest in having access to an independent legal profession governed by an independent regulator free from unnecessary government direction and intrusion. “The independence of the bar from the state in all its pervasive manifestations is one of the hallmarks of a free society. Consequently, regulation of these members of the law profession by the state must, so far as by human ingenuity it can be so designed, be free from state interference, in the political sense, with the delivery of services to the individual citizens in the state, particularly in fields of public and criminal law.
Dick’s idea was that his rebels will be better able to take over an ignorant population than one where everyone understands their rights. The comment was a recognition that society could not exist in a state of fairness and peace without the protection of both the law and its staunch guardians, the lawyers.