The Commissioner role was established by the Legal Complaints and Regulation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, which introduces new provisions to move away from a system where legal professionals handle their own complaints process, to one where lay people lead the process.
The Commissioner is an independent officer responsible for making provisions regarding complaints against members of the legal profession. The Commissioner will not be directly involved in assessing complaints, instead the Commissioner has an important role in overseeing the introduction of new complaints handling systems and monitoring the effectiveness of the related structures.
Powers of the Commissioner
The Act sets out the Commissioner’s powers. Those powers are strategic; rather than having operational responsibilities in terms of specific complaints, they are concentrated on oversight of the complaints-handling systems of the Law Society and, for the first time, the Bar.
The powers include:
- the power to investigate how complaints are handled by the relevant professional body,
- the power to set targets in relation to complaints handling,
- the power to require a professional body to submit plans relating to complaints handling, and
- the power to penalise the professional body in certain circumstances.
The Commissioner will also have the power to gather information relating to complaints at the first tier – those complaints that are made to individual solicitors’ practices, or about individual barristers through the scheme administered on behalf of barristers by the Bar Council. Statistical information on first tier complaints will be included in the Commissioner’s Annual Report in order to help inform the overall complaints-handling process.
As well as the specific powers relating to oversight of the complaints systems of solicitors and barristers, there is also broader provision included for the Commissioner to have a consultative role in relation to other aspects of regulation. All new rules or regulations made by the Law Society or the various organs of the Bar will now be subject to additional transparency by way of consultation with the Commissioner. In addition, the Department of Finance may request the Commissioner to examine any matter relating to the regulation or organisation of the professions, and this could include matters relating to general regulation, such as entry to the profession, training, and codes of conduct.