Law and Rights

2.Main Content

Law and Rights

This section covers ADR options for:
Legal services
Police
Prisons
Discrimination
Human rights

Legal services
Most people in the UK receive their legal services from solicitors, or sometimes from barristers. If you have a complaint about your solicitor or barrister, you should first take it up with the individual or the firm concerned, so they have a chance to try to put things right.

Of course, although all legal practitioners are required to have a complaints procedure, not all of them will deal with your complaint well. If you feel that your complaint has not been resolved to your satisfaction, the next step is to complain to the professional body concerned.

Then, if you are not happy with their response, you can complain to the Legal Services Ombudsman.

Many people complaining about their solicitor get extremely frustrated not just because of the original complaint, but because there are so many levels of complaint to go through, and so many opportunities for poor practice and poor customer care.

This section on ADR options in legal services includes:
Complaints procedures
Ombudsmen
Pre-action protocol
Complaints about courts

Complaints procedures
If you are not happy with the way your solicitor, barrister or other legal service provider has dealt with your complaint, you need to complain to the relevant professional body.

England and Wales:
If you have a complaint about your solicitor, go to the Legal Complaints Service.

If you have a complaint about your barrister, go to the Bar Council

Other options include:
- the Council for Licensed Conveyancers
- the Institute for Legal Executives
- the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents

In Scotland, the professional body for solicitors is the Law Society of Scotland and in Northern Ireland, the Law Society of Northern Ireland.

Ombudsman schemes
If you are not happy with the way the professional body handles your complaint, the next step is to complain to the relevant ombudsman. Their job is not to investigate your original complaint, but to investigate the way the professional body has dealt with your complaint. You can understand why people get frustrated!

There are three separate legal services ombudsman schemes in the UK.
In England and Wales, it is the Office of the Legal Services Ombudsman.
In Scotland, it is the Scottish Legal Services Ombud.
In Northern Ireland, it is the .

In some cases the ombudsman will recommend that the original complaint should be re-examined by the professional body. This may mean that the original decision can be changed.

All ombudsmen, except the Lay Observer in Northern Ireland, can recommend that the professional body and/or the legal service provider should pay compensation for poor complaint-handling.

Don’t forget you can still go to court over the original complaint if you are dissatisfied with the professional body or the ombudsman investigation. Because these procedures are free, there is no (or little) risk in terms of cost involved in pursuing these routes, but it is worth thinking about how long it will take – none of them move very quickly.

Pre-action protocol
If you want to take your legal services provider to court, there is a pre-action protocol for professional negligence.

Like all the pre-action protocols, it sets out what the court expects you and the other side to do before going to court. Basically, this usually means that you are expected to exchange information, attempt to settle the dispute, and consider ADR, before making a court application. If you don’t do this, the court can impose cost sanctions.

The full protocol is available on the Pre-action protocols website.

Complaints about courts
Complaints about the courts should be raised directly with the Courts Service in England and Wales, the Scottish Courts Service, or the Northern Ireland Courts Service.

If the issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you can complain about the administration of the courts – things such as delay or misinformation, but not judicial decision making or policy – to:
the Parliamentary Ombudsman
the Scottish Public Services Ombud
the Northern Ireland Ombudsman
top

Police
For advice on making a complaint about police behaviour, see Advicenow or Advice Guide. You are advised to seek help from an advice agency or solicitor before taking action against the police.

You are normally expected to make your complaint to the local police first. If they do not deal with the complaint to your satisfaction, or if they refuse to record your complaint, you can go to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). In serious cases, you can go straight to the IPCC.

The IPCC also has the power to decide to start an investigation itself, even without a complaint from an individual. This has happened in a number of high profile cases, especially those which involve the death of a member of the public.

Unlike the former Police Complaints Authority, the IPCC is overseen by independent members, including its chair and deputy chair. None of the members of the IPCC Board are former police officers.

There is very clear information on how to complain about the police on the Independent Police Complaints Commission website.

Complaints about the police in Northern Ireland are dealt with by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (Police Ombudsman (NI)). In Scotland, there is no independent ADR mechanism for these disputes; complaints about police are dealt with by the Scottish Prison Complaints Commissioner (see below).

For complaints about the police there can be a tension between individual redress for a complainant, and disciplinary action on police misconduct. If the focus is on disciplinary action against a police officer, rather than on redress for the person complaining, complainants can feel sidelined. Both the IPCC and the PONI try to deal with this by promising to keep complainants informed about what is going on at all stages of the investigation.
top

Prisons
In England and Wales, complaints about the Prison Service and the National Probation Service are dealt with by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (Prisons/Probation Ombudsman).

You can complain about discipline in prisons, prisoners’ property, transfers and allocations, harassment and bail conditions.

The ombudsman's remit was expanded in April 2004. Since then, all deaths in prisons, probation hostels and immigration detention accommodation are investigated by the PPO. The issue of which ombudsman - the PPO or the Health Service Ombudsman - handles prisoners' health-care complaints is in transition.

Complaints about Scottish prisons are dealt with by the Scottish Prisons Complaints Commissioner. Details can be found in the Justice section of the Scottish Executive website. Complainants must first have used the prison's internal complaints procedures.
top

Discrimination
Complaints about discrimination arise in many contexts: employment, the provision of public services, consumer rights, education.

You can find a wide range of information about discrimination on the Advicenow website. You can also download a free leaflet about discrimination at work.

Among the ADR schemes available for discrimination disputes are:
Acas arbitration
Acas conciliation
Disability Conciliation Service

Mediation is also available for disputes about special educational needs (see the SEN Mediation in London scheme profile)

There is an ongoing debate to be had about the role of mediation in disputes about discrimination. On the one hand, mediation is quicker, cheaper and less public than a court case. It can help parties to listen to each other, gain a greater understanding of the other side’s point of view, and negotiate a flexible and creative solution to the problem. On the other hand, making a confidential, private agreement can encourage discriminatory practice. Public enforcement action against those who discriminate - including employers, traders, and public bodies - sends a very clear message that society will not tolerate discrimination.

For an exchange of letters debating these issues in the context of disability conciliation, have a look at Doing the 'Rights' thing on the ASA website.

See also Consumer Affairs, Education and Training, Employment
top

Human rights
Human rights issues arise in all areas of our lives - housing, employment, education, our relationship with the state and our position as prisoners. The Human Rights Act (HRA), came into force in October 2000. This incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into UK law. Section 6 places a legal obligation on all public authorities not to breach an individual's ECHR rights. Anyone who feels that their ECHR rights have been breached can take the public body to court or tribunal in the UK, rather than having to go to the European court, as was previously the case.

The Act means that individuals can pursue complaints against public bodies, either in court or through the public-sector ombudsmen. In some cases, damages can be obtained.

The UK government has established a joint civil rights commission, the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights (CEHR). This will start operating in October 2007. The CEHR will bring together the work of three existing equality commissions - the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission - and also take responsibility for new laws outlawing discrimination on age, religion or belief, and sexual orientation. The CEHR will encourage the use of conciliation to resolve disputes about Human Rights, but no details of how this might work have yet been published.

The Human Rights Act also raises some interesting questions about the relationship between ADR and the courts. For example, Article 6 gives litigants a right to a “fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law”. The judgement in The Halsey Case 2004 refers to Article 6 as the justification for deciding that courts do not have the power to compel unwilling parties to take part in mediation.
top

Revised January 2007