Sir Alan Moses' Ebsworth lecture on Quality Assurance, February 2012

This is a seminal speech given by a brilliant man. It would be an act of crass arrogance for the BSB to ignore it. The QASA system is deeply flawed and wrong-headed. No organisation properly understanding the vital constitutional role of a Court Advocate in a free society could support such a scheme. The Barrister’s role may REQUIRE him or her to challenge the Judge. The interests of Bar and Bench invariably conflict. A Barrister seeking advancement from a Judge will pull his or her punches. If the BSB is client and service-orientated, it will scrap this insidious scheme – a scheme claiming to be designed FOR consumers will in the end damage their interests by breeding a new type of creepy-crawly Barrister brandishing not formidable argument, but a series of tick boxes. QASA is a bare-faced system of promotion designed to control Advocates or tending to have such an effect. The State operating through a statutory regulator cannot in a liberal democracy lawfully undermine the freedom of Advocates who would assist its citizens to oppose it, whether they be criminal Defendants or others. The likelihood of more criminal appeals is nothing compared to the field day public lawyers will enjoy. QASA is the worst of a series of terrible ideas promoted by the BSB and the Bar Council in recent years. If promulgated in ignorance of our legal traditions that is one thing. If promoted despite them, there needs to be a close and public examination of the political motivations that are manifested as a desire for absolute control of the Bar from and by a central authority. The collective learning and integrity of the Bar is surely able to purge itself of such large scale malevolence before it is too late.