Reflections on the protection of the Freedom of Expression of Lawyers // Strengthening and improving guarantees for the legal profession

The UIA-IROL session will discuss two different but interlinked topics.

Reflections on the Protection of the Freedom of Expression of Lawyers
Protecting the freedom of expression of lawyers, including but not limited to the legal duty to represent their clients in court, is undeniably crucial to ensure an effectively free and independent practice and therefore enable the legal profession to fully assume its role in upholding the Rule of Law, advancing access to justice, and protecting human rights. While regional and international instruments and jurisprudence acknowledge an enhanced protection to freedom of expression of lawyers, this protection cannot be considered absolute. The first part of the discussion will therefore focus on addressing the scope of this protection inside and outside the courtroom - including in social media and the press - and, in particular, outlining justification for legitimate limitations in order to guarantee that they are not misused to validate unwarranted restrictions and arbitrarily silence lawyers. We will look at specific egregious countries and cases of concerns, and actions taken, for protecting the freedom of expression of lawyers.

Strengthening and improving guarantees for the legal profession
In a context of increasingly frequent, various and serious attacks and interferences on the independence of the legal profession, and against lawyers individually, effectively strengthening international, regional and domestic standards of protection appears more urgent than ever. This concern is at the heart of the Council of Europe’s current process of elaboration of a legal instrument on the legal profession, and has been expressly identified as a challenge by the newly appointed Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Ms Margaret Satterthwaite, in her first report. This second part of the discussion will focus on identifying needs, shortcomings and lacks in the existing protection framework in order to formulate specific recommendations on this crucial issue and formulating a UIA collective framework for strengthening the domestic, regional, and international mechanisms for the protection of lawyers.