CRIMINAL LIABILITY OF LAWYERS

Abstract

The legislative deficiencies and the rules governing the lawyer’s profession do not regulate clearly enough the fate of criminally convicted lawyers; the lawyers within the board of the Bar must decide the fate of a fellow lawyer of the Bar. Law no. 51/1995 – regarding the organization and exercise of lawyer’s profession, as well as the Statute of the lawyer – shows that the lawyer’s capacity shall end if the lawyer has received a final sentence for an action criminalized by the criminal law, which renders him/her “unworthy of being a lawyer”. The first condition for a lawyer to be “judged” by the board of the Bar is for the court that decided his/her conviction to send the final sentence to the said Board. Upon receiving the motivation of the court, the Board will be able to take a decision. At that point, the board of the Bar to which the convicted lawyer belongs will analyze whether the actions for which he/she was convicted affect or not his/her lawyer profession (the prestige of the lawyer’s profession). If it is determined that the actions did affect the profession of lawyer, then he/she can be excluded from the Bar. On the contrary, if it is determined that his/her actions did not affect the profession of lawyer, the person can still be part of the body of lawyers. These anomalies have brought and underlined a serious issue of the system: criminally convicted lawyers who – based on unclear and permissive legal provisions and benefiting from the protection of fellow lawyers within the boards of the Bars – still exercise their professions and plead before courts with no impediments whatsoever.