Abstract
This chapter describes the professional and regulatory contexts in which the LSO emerged in the 1990s. Central to the discussion is the extent to which consumerism transformed expectations of the legal profession and of the role that an ombuds might play in the public and private sectors. That transformation entailed the renegotiation of the regulative bargain between the state and the legal profession. At the same time, similarly consumerist forces altered expectations of the ombuds institution so that increasingly it came to be seen as a means of protecting consumer rights rather than of redressing the imbalance of power between citizens, the state and private corporations.
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Notes
- 1.
These are areas of work that can only be performed by members of the legal profession. They included, for example, advocacy in the higher courts, which could only be performed by barristers; conveyancing, which was the sole preserve of solicitors.
- 2.
At the time there were two branches of the legal profession: solicitors and barristers. The reasons are historical, and the distinction has always been problematic.
- 3.
Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967.
- 4.
Lord Shawcross, in his preface to the Whyatt Report (Justice 1961), spoke evocatively of the “little man” who was to be the primary beneficiary of the new ombudsman institution and so find refuge from “another Crichel Down”. The Crichel Down affair in the 1950s concerned an alleged of abuse of power concerning land requisitioned in wartime.
- 5.
Local Government Act 1974; Parliamentary Commissioner Act (Northern Ireland) 1969; Commissioner for Complaints (Northern Ireland) Act 1969; Local Government (Scotland) Act 1975; National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973; National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1972.
- 6.
Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, section 12(3).
- 7.
Richard Crossman MP, presenting the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Commissioner Bill in the House of Commons (754 FC Official Report, col 51, 18 October 1966). Incidentally, although Hansard reads “inaptitude”, commentators have repeatedly substituted “ineptitude”, presumably on the basis that “inaptitude” was a misprint, and “ineptitude” was the intended word.
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O’Brien, N., Seneviratne, M. (2017). Professional Context and Regulatory Background: “Fat Cats” and Frustrated “Consumers”. In: Ombudsmen at the Crossroads. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58446-5_2
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