I was asked this week what the point of Petition PE1033 is, considering we now have the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Bill passed into Law.
Well, simply, the LPLA Bill does nothing for those of us who have had poor experiences with the Law Society of Scotland over mishandled complaints against those crooked lawyers who have cost us our livelihoods, sold us dodgy mortgages, mishandled our investments, embezzled our money, lost us our homes, livelihoods, businesses, even our health ..
This is why the Scottish Parliament needs to consider this issue and either award extra powers to the new Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to look at cases of the past where the legal profession have caused injustice to clients, or, a totally independent & transparent 'Review Commission' must be formed to look at these cases properly, without the bias & prejudice the Law Society of Scotland has always treated clients who complain against their lawyers, and settle the cases properly, with proper and full amounts of compensation awarded to those who have lost out or suffered at the hands of a crooked lawyer.
Why a separate review body, or extended powers for the SLCC ?
There is a need for such a 'review commission' or extended powers to the SLCC, simply because of the fact that those of us who have complained against a crooked lawyer can't get anywhere near the courts to pursue claims of compensation for negligence or other losses, because the only way we can currently get into court, is to use a lawyer to sue a lawyer - and we all know that doesn't work - example, Andrew Penman .. and the rest, and we all know the lengths the Law Society of Scotland and even its most senior staff will go to thwart court actions against their members - example here : Corrupt Link Revealed - How the Law Society of Scotland manages client complaints & settlements
Here's another example of how difficult it is to use a lawyer to sue a lawyer : Using the Master Policy of the Law Society of Scotland to sue a negligent lawyer is impossible
We therefore need either a separate review body to look at the past cases of injustice by the legal profession against clients, or we need the Scottish Parliament to give new powers to the SLCC to carry out that function, as currently, the LPLA Bill does not allow for retrospective consideration of mishandled complaints by the legal profession .. simple as that.
Are there a lot of cases which may fall under the category of injustice by the legal profession ?
Well .. yes there are .. if you consider there are around 5000 complaints a year against Scotland's less than 10,000 lawyers .. and that's been going on flor a decade or more .. there certainly are a lot of cases of complaint which may well fall under the spell of a much needed review.
If you want to understand some of the history of complaints against solicitors, and how badly the Law Society of Scotland have treated clients who dared complain against their crooked lawyer .. take a look at the Scottish Consumer Council's 1999 survey "Complaints Against Solicitors", which you can download in pdf format here : Complaints Against Solicitors
You can also have a read through the submissions made to the 2002 Justice 1 Committee "Regulation of the Legal Profession" Inquiry, located here : Submissions to Justice 1 Committee (2002)
Also, not forgetting the recent passage of the LPLA Bill by the Parliament, you can view online submissions to the 2006 Justice 2 Committee investigation here : Submissions to Justice 2 Committee (2006)
If you take my own case, well .. I've been suffering at the hands of the crooked Law Society of Scotland since 1994 with crooked lawyer Andrew Penman of Stormonth Darling Solicitors, Kelso (and even earlier than that with a few other crooked lawyers in 1990) ... and I have campaigned for an end to self regulation by lawyers since the start of my media coverage in the Scotsman newspaper - Thank you Scotsman - you were once an honest newspaper !
You can read some of my media coverage against crooked lawyer Andrew Penman here : Scottish Legal Awards - Lawyer Lawyer on the wall, who is the most crooked of us all ?
There are plenty more cases of injustice than my own case though ... and plenty more long before I ever started the campaign trail against self regulation of lawyers back in the early 1990s ... so the establishment of either a review commission or a protocol of review for the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, along with the establishment of a compensation fund, funded by the two major players in this matter - the Executive and the legal profession, is for all of you who have suffered at the hands of crooked lawyers and the Law Society of Scotland when the regulatory process of complaint has let you down - and your lawyer has got away scot free ...
Please support Petition PE1033 and sign up !
It's in all our interests to secure a review of our cases of complaints against poor legal services, and obtain proper compensation for what has happened to us over the years at the hands of a dishonest legal profession bent on protecting their crooked colleagues at our expense.
12 comments:
Looks like there's a lot of problems with lawyers in Scotland
Hope you get support for this.
When you are finished up there, come down to England and do the same !
You could end up bankrupting all those crooked lawyers who ripped their clients off - GOOD !
For your 17 years of effort and being pissed about by all these bastards Id say you were due a bit.At least you campaigned for everyone which is a damn sight more than some do.
Hi Peter
Great petition.There must be a lot of people happy to see your idea at last.
Keep up the good work.
Did you see what the Scotsman did to their forums ?Looks like they caved into wee joke again !
Quite an interesting petition and I like the way you told the background to it.
Looks like something which should go through.Good luck with it Mr Cherbi
I think you have upset Douglas again, Peter.Mr Mill is back to his daily rages against 'campaigners'
I think hes upset more than lawyers with this stuff.Looks like the Scotsman forum censorship is down to pepole like u telling the real side of the story insdead of the garbage in the paper
Poirot
You seem to know a lot about Douglas Mill.What say we put Cherbi & Mill before another Justice Committee and see who has the most credibility ?
This is obviously the fault of the leadership at the Law Society for allowing complaints to mushroom rather than settle them at the time.
Justice would be served by making them pay for their mistakes on all these cases I've been reading about in the linked articles and that Consumer Council report.
Spot on about Angela Ballie.
The cops should have investigated more and they would have found a few more of her colleagues at it.
Dear Madams, Sirs.
My name is Guje Borgesson. Living in Sweden I do not where to turn and I am now writing to you to ask for help.
What has happened is that Dec 4, 2005 my daughter Annie 30, was found dead in Scotland. At the time she lived in Edinburgh but was found dead on the shore in Prestwick, probarbly drowned, about 100 kilometers from Edinburgh.
She was found at a walking distace from the airport in Prestwick from where she always travelled home to Sweden. Annie was found dressed, except from her jacket, that was right beside her. In her bag she had her Swedish passport and two library books to return to a Swedish library. She had also made an appointment with her hairdresser in Sweden Dec.5.
Although Annie's body, bag and her jacket had different weights and density they were all found on the same spot. The ground is also very flat where she was found, the tides goes out 150 meters and you then would have to walk for several hundreds of meters to get into deep water. When the tide is in it's not more than one meter high where the wall is where Annie was found. On one of Annie's arms there were "square contused areas", but how do you get that at sea? These and other big bruisings I got to see when Annie's body got returned to Sweden. One of the them in the shape as from the edge of a hand on her right temple. This makes us believe Annie was transported to the shore, hit and drowned!
The days before she died Annie also called home and it then got obvious that she was under a threat. Due to these and several other very strange circumstances as well as Annie's personality, we her family and her friends are convinced that Annie was murdered. Yet the Scottish Police has not been investigating Annie's death as a crime, but as a suicide! And in accordiance to that, never seeld her room off, sent all the evidence material back, and never payed any attention to what I had to say about people that Annie knew, and so on.
When we got Annie back home we also got to see that her blond, waist-long very thick hair had been chopped off! Why, and by whom the Police and the Procurator Fiscal refuses to investigate!
It has now been more than a year since Annie was found dead and the investigation about her death now is closed by the Strathclyde Police. The desicion was made by Crown Council, why and by whom, we are not allowed to know and we are denied to take part of the documentation!
According to the law Freedome of Information we are not allowed to take part of the investigation because there is an exeption for deaths saying; it would not be in the interrest of the public! Well, we think there is! And it is certanly in the interrest of our family!
We have now been struggling for more than a year to get to know what happened to Annie and still know nothing. Not only have we lost a lovely daughter, sister and friend but we are also denied a proper investigation about her death!
Living in Sweden I of course know nothing about the legislation in Scotland, but is this the way the law Freedome of Information is supposed to work? Shouldn't the law serve the public, and are there any efforts beeing done on changing this law to serve the public instead of mistreating individuals?
As you can see my daugters's case is an excellent example of that! I therefore would like to ask you, what can be done to help us get access to the documentation about Annie´s case? Can anyone please help?
This letter is just a very brief summary of what has happened and if you would like to take part of some more information about Annie we now have a web-site for her, the adress is; www.annierockstar.com I would of course be very pleased if you would like to write to me and I can give further information about my daughters case, e-mail; gujeborgesson@hotmail.com or info@annierockstar.com
Thank you very much for reading this, and please help us get to know what happened to Annie. Yours sincerely, Guje Borgesson, Annie´s mother.
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