Don’t like lawyers? Soon you may be hearing and reading a lot less of them, as a move is made to stop barristers and solicitors speaking to the media.
Don’t like lawyers? Soon you may be hearing and reading a lot less of them, as a move is made to stop barristers and solicitors speaking to the media.
Two weeks after the Western Australian Bar Association (WABA) passed a conduct rule preventing barristers commenting in the media about their clients, it is understood that Law Society president Wayne Martin QC is considering proposing a similar motion for members of the Law Society.
Whereas the WABA represents 165 barristers, the Law Society’s membership is far more diverse, with 2,360 people members of the professional association for Western Australian barristers and solicitors.
Mr Martin, who proposed the new conduct rule for the WABA, declined to comment on whether he was considering a similar move for the Law Society when contacted by WA Business News this week, but several legal insiders said Mr Martin had made his intentions clear.
Whether Mr Martin gets the numbers to move a media restriction on Law Society members is uncertain, and the move to prevent barristers speaking about their past, present and future cases immediately caused division between Perth barristers.
One of Perth’s most senior barristers, Malcolm McCusker QC, told WA Business News he was ‘totally opposed’ to the ban.
Although opposed to the new conduct rule, Mr McCusker is abiding by it, obtaining dispensation from WABA president Ken Martin QC before making comments in the media last week about his client Andrew Mallard, who last week walked free after more than a decade in jail when a murder charge was withdrawn.
Several other barristers have spoken out against the rule, including Criminal Lawyers Association president Belinda Lonsdale, who said that all people, including barristers, should have the right to speak freely.
“In the interests of the public being better informed, it is much better if lawyers can speak to the media,” Ms Lonsdale said.
“In this era when the government is intent on passing more draconian laws, the only way the public can be educated is by talking about how these laws are applied to people.
“In the context of criminal law, it is also often the case that clients want their barristers to make comment to the media.”
With only 38 members of the WABA turning up to vote on the issue, Ms Londsdale said she was not sure that the vote reflected the views of everyone at the bar association.
“If the Law Society doesn’t pass a similar motion, I would be keen to move a motion against the conduct rule – if it doesn’t apply to solicitors, why should it apply to barristers,” she added.
Membership of the WABA is not compulsory, but almost all practitioners at the bar are members of the WABA.
The new conduct rule for the WABA was passed by 22 members out of 38 attending a meeting two weeks ago, and the move for the gag was driven by comments made in the media last year by QC’s Mark Trowell and Tom Percy in relation to the Schapelle Corby case.
One of the arguments put forward against the ban is that the Legal Practice Board has means of disciplining practitioners who bring the profession into disrepute, and as a consequence of comments made in relation to the Corby case, it is understood that a complaint in relation to Mr Trowell is before the Legal Practitioners Complaints Committee.
