Details of Previous Campaigns:

Forcing the European Commission to take action against ten European Union states

Notaries are the most powerful legal profession in Europe, and its best paid. They have statutory or de facto monopolies in many areas of law, such as the transfer of property. For this work they charge fees based on the value of the property transferred.

Their numbers are extremely limited, which means that becoming a notary is highly prized. Conversely, it is very much in the interests of notaries to keep the numbers qualifying down, and to prevent any kind of cross border competition.

For English notaries, on the other hand, there is potentially a huge legal market. Many of the jobs done by notaries relate to cross border transactions, and there is no particular reason why they should not do the work, so long as they have the legal competence to do it.

However, any cross border migration of notaries is strictly controlled and setting up shop as a notary in another country is forbidden, under each country's national law. So you have to be French to be a French notary, German to be a German notary, and so on.

So even if you are perfectly fluent in the language of the country, and understand its laws and have all the necessary examinations passed, you cannot be a notary unless and until you acquire that other country's nationality.

The aim of the campaign was to break this condition of nationality, and to oblige each nation state to admit properly qualified notaries from other states.

As one can imagine, there was no pressure to change this situation, and indeed a huge lobby, at both professional and governmental level, to keep things exactly as they were. Previous lobbying by the continental notaries had exempted them from the obligation to let foreign lawyers practise as migrant lawyers, thus effectively ratifying the monopoly.

The English notaries did not want to rock the boat, nor did the Law Society, thus leaving only one person who wanted to act to end the nationality condition. The force for change was thus extremely small, yet was successful.

The Commission refused to act initially, but was eventually forced, by intense lobbying, to take legal action against the infringing EU states. Three of the nations agreed to drop the nationality condition, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Since both Spain and Italy were countries in which the notarial tradition is strong, their agreement meant that the other countries were likely to back down in time.

Press articles and comments can be found in our Press page

The Abolition of the Scrivener Monopoly

The aim of the campaign was to abolish a monopoly on the supply of legal services. The monopoly in question was on the supply of notary services in London.

Notaries are lawyers. They are the most ancient of the legal professions, and in most of Europe and Central and South America, the most powerful and the best paid.

In England and Wales, notaries act mostly in respect of international transactions. Save for the notaries in the City of London, notaries were almost always solicitors, because the income from notarial work was not enough to make a living. They have many contacts with businesses working and trading abroad, and much of this business takes place in London.

From the fourteenth century until victory in this campaign, the only lawyers who could act as notaries in the City of London and for a radius of three miles around it had to be members of a guild, the Worshipful Company of Scriveners. It had around 30 practising members.

The monopoly was confirmed by statute in the Public Notaries Act 1801, then reaffirmed in the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.

There was effectively no pressure to remove the monopoly from any of the relevant parties. The Law Society (which acts for solicitors) thought the matter one of no importance, the Notaries Society (which acts for all the non London notaries) was neutral in the matter, ostensibly, but was widely perceived as favouring the status quo. Naturally, the Worshipful Company of Scriveners was in favour of keeping the ancient monopoly.

The Office of Fair Trading claimed the matter was beyond their jurisdiction and the European Commission said it did not concern them either. Being a statutory monopoly, none of the competition statutes were relevant either and the statutory basis also meant that any court case was bound to fail.

The government and Civil Service also saw no need to act, as the monopoly had been considered, and reaffirmed, only very recently.

As one can see, there were many obstacles to abolition, a complete lack of interest in doing so, and an even greater resistance to considering the issue at all. However the campaign succeeded in :

• Bringing the matter to the attention of the media, with the case being written about in the Times, the Daily Express, the Gazette (the journal of the Law Society) and other legal journals
• Getting the support, albeit unwilling, of the Law Society for abolition
• Breaking the monopoly in London for foreign lawyers, by obliging the bringing into force of an EU Directive for foreign lawyers which forced the acceptance of foreign notaries in the City
• Getting the monopoly abolished, with the support of the Lord Chancellor, a dozen peers, thirty MPs, the legal spokespersons in the Lords and Commons for the Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties, the Office of Fair Trading, the Law Society, the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and Stonewall.