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"The SRA has said more recently that it would favour a tribunal comprised of two lay members and one solicitor member instead of the current structure of two solicitors, with one of them chairing. The argument is that such a configuration would give the public greater confidence that errant solicitors would be treated more robustly."

In fact, the SRA went considerably further than that. It alleges that the 2:1 composition of panels gives rise to a problem of structural bias. It expressly uses the word "bias".

The SDT needs to address that allegation, because it calls into question every decision made (over the last ten or eleven years) by a panel which contained more solicitors than laypeople. The SDT cannot simply skate over an allegation of apparent bias made by the organisation which brings almost every prosecution.