This is a short invitation to a very public meeting this Sunday (details below) to discuss some urgent needs for justice reforms to restore the quality and integrity of the legal profession and judicial system.
This is the first of many meetings to be held nationwide over coming months.
The agenda is very specific.
1. The Victorian Government has a duty to fund appropriate High Court test cases to under the harm caused by the Victorian test case in 2004 that made it illegal for members of the public to sue negligent litigation solicitors (the first time this law has ever been made anywhere in the world), and to retain the old rule that it used to be / is illegal to sue negligent barristers (abolished in the UK in 2000 by 15 Law Lords to nil).
Australia is the only country in the world that has these special laws for lawyers, making lawyers unaccountable at law according to the legal professional standards that apply to all other Australians and all non-Australian litigators, In terms of coverage, the old law covered approx 6,000 barristers, Australia wide. The 2004 law covers upwards of 80,000 solicitors. 90% of all solicitors, and all the areas of law that most Australians go to see lawyers about, family law, banking evictions, landlord evictions, wills and deceased estates, motor vehicle and criminal offences – can be negligent and there is nothing their clients (or others) can legally do to get compensation.
2. At the same time that the High Court of Australia made this dreadful mistake (2004), the former Bracks-Brumby-Hulls Victorian Government took the regulation of lawyers out of the hands of the independent consumer focused Legal Services Ombudsman, and handed it back to the ‘old boys club’ lawyers, via a Legal Services Commissioner which since December 2005 has refused to investigate as many as 90% of public complaints (citing old, obsolete and stupid legal arguments). Of the few that the Legal Services Commissioner has investigate it has done so so badly (as the Victorian government’s “regulators’ regulator”, the Victorian State Government Ombudsman George Brouwer reported to Parliament in his 2009 Annual Report to Parliament) that it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Legal Services Commissioner deliberately “chucks” its investigations. The Legal Services Commissioner was certainly reported as the no.1 customer of the “regulator’s regulator” receiving (and rejecting) most of the 2000 plus public complaints it receives each year and generating 100 complaints from its customers (the dissatisfied general public) to the office of the State Government Ombudsman.
To restore public confidence and respect for the legal profession the Victorian Government needs to fund independent legal proceedings to get the High Court to reverse its mistaken decisions in the 2004 test case (D’Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid & a Barrister). The former Victorian government (via Victoria Legal Aid and via the Legal Practitioners Liability Committee and other government statutory bodies spent millions of dollars of Victorian public monies getting those 2004, lawyer-self-serving laws created by the High Court). The current Victorian government has a duty to the Victorian public, and to all Australians, to fund the costs of getting those two bad laws fixed.
Further information about the proposed resolutions and delegation to Premier Ted Baillieu and to Attorney General Robert Clark are set out below. Details of a proposed Victim Impact Statement Register will also be discussed at the public meeting.
Thank you for helping to raise awareness of these failures of the legal profession and of the legal regulator to meet the professional standards that members of the public expect of lawyers / regulators, with your wonderful attendance at the start of the Lawyerocracy on Trial hearings that began on 21 May 12 (and will resume on 6 July 12).
Be sure to visit http://lawyerocracyontrial.wordpress.com to find out how to make sure your name is recorded on the credits for the upcoming documentary of this story, and to receive your tickets to walk the red carpet on the Melbourne opening night of the documentary, later this year.
I hope you are able to continue to show your support by coming along on Sunday afternoon to the meeting at Unity Hall, 4 Renown Street, Burwood Melbourne from 1.45 pm.
Please distribute this email to all of your family, friends and colleagues, via email, social media and by printed copies (eg reformating copies of this email to create your own posters and flyers etc etc to pin up on public notice boards at shopping centres, sports clubs etc etc).
We want to make sure that Victoria’s Parliamentarians are made well aware of just how bad, and politically unacceptable the situation in the legal profession and its captured “co-regulator = no-regulator” legal regulator the Legal Services Commissioner Mr Michael McGarvie, has become.
Best wishes
James Johnson
JAMES JOHNSON
Independent Federal Candidate for Lalor
Constitutional Human Rights Advocate
Solicitor and Barrister of the High Court of Australia
(Celebrating 20 Years of Legal Practice 1990 – 2010)
SMS: +61 (0)401 865 914 (text only)
EMAIL: james@jamesjohnson2020.com
BLOG: http://jamesjohnsonchr.wordpress.com
www.jamesjohnsonohr.weebly.com
TWITTER: www.twitter.com/jamesjohnsonchr
“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King Jnr.
“Australia is a 1st rate nation ruled by a 4th generation of 5th rate lawyers, who abuse our luck” – James Johnson
“Reclaiming Truth, Justice, Equity and the Law. Touch One, Touch All.” – James Johnson
POSTED BY JAMESJOHNSONCHR ⋅ MAY 25, 2012
… ☞☞☞ … First of Nationwide Public Meetings – Reclaiming Truth, Justice, Equity and the Law – Melbourne, Sunday 27 May 2012. From 1:45 pm … ☞☞☞ …
Notice of First Nationwide Public Meeting
RECLAIMING TRUTH, JUSTICE, EQUITY AND THE LAW – LAWYEROCRACY ON TRIAL
Unity Hall, 4 Renown Street,
Burwood (Melbourne, Victoria)
Sunday 27 May 2012
| 1:45 pm | SAUSAGE SIZZLE | |
| 2:30 – 3:30 pm | AGENDA – Order of BusinessA. Justice Reform and Regulation of Lawyers
A panel of presenters, including Senior Constitutional Human Rights Solicitor and Barrister James Johnson will report to the Meeting on: A.1 the need for the Australian Government (via Victorian Government funded test case(s) in the High Court of Australia) to repeal the 2004 High Court of Australia judgement in D’Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid & A Barrister, that made it illegal for Australians who suffer harm at the hands of a negligent litigation solicitor or barrister to sue that lawyer for compensation; – and – A.2 the need for the Victorian Government to re-establish the independent (of lawyers) Victorian Legal Ombudsman Scheme that operated successfully in Victoria between 1996 – 2005 to replace the failed “co-regulation = no-regulation”Legal Services Commissioner scheme that has failed Victorians (and protected negligent lawyers) since December 2005 See Background Paper for more information –link to appear here. B. Proposed Resolutions For Debate at the Meeting (1) THAT Delegations be sent to the Victorian Premier, the Honorable Ted Baillieu (MLA for Hawthorn) and to the Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark (MLA for Box Hill), DEMANDING that the Victorian Government provide FUNDING for one (or more) legal test case(s) asking the High Court of Australia to repeal its 2004 decision inD’Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid and a Barrister, where the Victorian Government obtained new, nationwide laws (laws never existed anywhere else in the world) to the effect that since 2004 Australian’s cannot sue their solicitors / barristers to compensate them if they negligently handle their legal case. (2) THAT Delegations be sent to the Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu and to the Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark demanding that the Victorian government RE-ESTABLISH the independent (of lawyers) Victorian Legal Ombudsman Scheme that operated successfully between 1996 and 2004 and ABOLISH the failed “co-regulation = no-regulation” Legal Services Commissionerscheme that the former Brumby-Bracks-Hulls government created in 2004. See Background Paper for more information – link to appear here. |
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| 3.30 – 4.15 pm | B. Establishment of Victim Impact RegisterMembers of the Public will be invited and told how to register their complaints against members of the legal profession &/or the legal services commissioner in a “Victim Impact Register” (being coordinated, and privacy and otherwise protected at law, by Senior Constitutional and Human Rights and Ethical Solicitor and Barrister, James Johnson). The potential benefits of registering complaints on the Victim Impact Register will be explained at the Meeting.
See Background Paper for more information –link to appear here |
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| 4.15 – 4:30 pm | C. Other Business (if any) and Closure |
This is the first of many planned national public meetings in each of the Australian Capital Cities and major region centres.
Details for the public meetings in every State and the Northern Territory will be posted in a table below as and when organised.
James Johnson
Independent Federal Candidate for Lalor
