SPEECH OF GORON TURIFF Q.C. AND PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH COMLUMBIA BAR OF CANADA

Speech by Gordon Turriff, President, Law Society of British Columbia, at the Conference of Regulatory Officers, Perth, Australia, in September 2009 Wednesday, 11 August 2010 09:56am
This publication is used with permission from the Law Society of British Columbia. The Law Society of British Columbia’s President, Gordon Turriff, QC, shared his thoughts on self-governance of the legal profession as a necessary condition of lawyer independence in many forums and venues during the 125th anniversary year of the Law Society of British Columbia.
The address reproduced here, entitled “Self-Governance as a Necessary Condition of Constitutionally Mandated Lawyer Independence in British Columbia” , was presented at the Conference of Regulatory Officers in Perth, Australia.
 Introduction
 My wife and I have three children. In May this year, our younger daughter was a volunteer in Uganda. When she returned home, she brought with her an English language Ugandan newspaper. There, under the road traffic news, was an advertisement placed by an organisation called the African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims. It read: “Are you a victim of torture by security agents or rebels?” What an astonishing thing to see in 2009 in a newspaper from any country. And particularly a country which is another former British colony. But there it was. As if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
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