'Watered-down' bill to regulate lawyers dismays Chamber of Advocates

The new law proposed by the government to regulate the legal profession is “unacceptable” as it is a far cry from what had been discussed with lawyers prior to its publication.

The Bill to amend the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure and the Commission for the Administration of Justice Act include provisions aimed at regulating the profession but come nowhere close to it, Chamber of Advocates president Louis DeGabriele told Times of Malta.

“We think the Bill as proposed by the justice minister does not effectively address regulating the profession. Half-baked? Well, I think it’s less than half-baked.

“It is patching something that should have been dealt with differently. I’m still at a loss on why the government went ahead with this watered-down version,” DeGabriele said when contacted.

He explained that it was the chamber that drafted the first draft of the Bill and the government went back to the chamber with a version that contained changes to some of the main provisions, principally dealing with some regulatory issues.

The chamber accepted the government’s policy shift but then it was faced with a completely different version to the one it had agreed upon in...