The legal profession expressed disappointment yesterday after learning the Attorney-General had gone ahead with a poll on whether solicitors should have rights of audience in the higher courts.
Ignoring repeated appeals from the Bar Association and the Law Society to consult them on drafting the questions, Jeremy Mathews commissioned City University to go ahead with the survey without informing the two bodies.
One thousand households were interviewed last month.
Deputy Solicitor-General Robert Allcock declined to disclose the questions.
'We do not want to stir up a row with the legal profession. We prefer to present the whole package of the survey results when it is ready,' he said.
Law Society council member, Raymond Tang Yee-bong, said he was surprised at the way Mr Mathews had handled the matter.
'Whether a solicitor should have rights of audience in the higher courts is a technical matter which only legal practitioners can understand. The interviewees in the survey are laymen,' he said. 'I am disappointed that both the Law Society and the Bar have not been consulted, not even for discussion on how the questions should be sensibly drafted.' He had no doubt about the expertise of City University in carrying out the survey, which he believed had been conducted impartially.