Legal Licensing and Practices Act

Legal Licensing and Practices Act
An Act to restore function and structure to the Ministry of Justice, to encourage greater engagement with legal certification and to establish a Crown Prosecution Service which can best suit the needs of Crown and country.

AUTHOR: Galmone Smith, Duke of the Aurumsmark Isles.

SPONSORS: Lord Baldassar Partiger, Viscount of Blackblood’s Folly;

BE IT ENACTED by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Temporal, Spiritual and Foreign, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1 Repeal of antecedent legislation
 * 1) The Legal Licensing Act will be repealed entirely by this legislation.

2 On the licensing of barristers and solicitors  3 On the establishment of the Crown Prosecution Service, its powers and privileges  4 Short title and commencement
 * 1) The power to provide a legal license as a barrister (criminal lawyer) will be provided to recognised, competent institutions of significant legal and educational standing (e.g. universities or bar associations).
 * 2) The power to provide a legal license as a solicitor (civil lawyer) will be provided to recognised, competent institutions of significant legal and education standing (e.g. universities or bar associations).
 * 3) The Lord High Prosecutor will retain the right to ask a civil court to suspend or strip a legal license through an injunction should the barrister or solicitor conduct legal malpractice. The civil court will be empowered to determine if the barrister or solicitor has acted in a manner befitting the suspension or removal of their license.
 * 1) There will exist under the authority of the Ministry of Justice an agency, called the Crown Prosecution Service, which will be responsible for conducting prosecutions on behalf of the Crown.
 * 2) The Lord High Prosecutor will ex officio always be the Director of Crown Prosecutions.
 * 3) The Director of Crown Prosecutions will always have the right to hire or fire barristers to serve as Crown Prosecutors.
 * 4) Crown Prosecutors are barristers in the employ of the Crown Prosecution Service, and will be entitled to the postnominal style of “King’s Counsel”, or “K.C.”
 * 1) The short title of this act shall be the “Legal Licensing and Practices Act”.
 * 2) The provisions of this act shall come into force immediately.

(( OOC Appendix: The provisions of Section 2 function to remove the SLP from saying who can and cannot serve as a barrister, opening that up to people’s personal backstories. It provides a means to remedy that if that is abused, through due process of a court. The provisions of Section 3 allow for barristers to still be engaged with the Ministry of Justice in a prosecutorial role, but frees up the Prosecutor’s hand in choosing which barristers he wants to employ - allowing him to set his own tests for maintaining a functioning prosecutorial system. It also adds a little flavour bonus to encourage prospective barristers to engage in that system. ))