Article: Adherence to the Principle of the Inadmissibility of the Conflict of Interests
The graduate of the “Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program Andriy Sitnikov, Deputy Chair of the Bar Council of Khmelnytsky Region published an article on “Observance of the principle of the inadmissibility of conflict of interest as the cornerstone of the legal ethics” in the August issue of the journal “The Bulletin of the National Bar Association of Ukraine“.
An independent, strong, structured and professional lawyer should rely on the foundation of sound ethical principles and the cornerstone of this foundation, according to the author, is to adhere to the principle of the inadmissibility of a conflict of interest.
One of the author’s opinions: “The design of the Code of Legal Ethics [on conflicts of interest] for Ukrainian lawyers, is rather liberal in comparison with the rules of the International Bar Association and Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, where such agreement is not provided for and in the Law on the Legal Ethics of Poland, where it is expressly prohibited (§ 46. A lawyer can not represent clients whose interests are controversial, even if those clients give their consent. In the event of a conflict arising in the course of representation, a lawyer is obliged to terminate the contract with the client whose interests are in conflict).
At the same time, this logic seems more convincing, since the client is mostly influenced by the professional authority of the lawyer and may not understand the consequences of such agreement. According to the author, such a situation should encourage respectable Ukrainian lawyers to apply internal ethical barriers that should be higher than written rules”.
The professional ethics of the lawyer is one of the key topics considered as a cross-cutting discipline of all four modules of the “Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program. We believe that adherence to the highest ethical standards is the basis of the professional activity of the lawyer.
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The “Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program was developed during 2016-2017 with the support of the project “Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine” with an expert contribution from the Canadian Bar Association. The “Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program is being implemented by the Ukrainian Bar Association and the Bar Association of Legal Aid Providers, with the support of the United States Embassy and The Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine (QALA) Project funded by the Government of Canada and implemented by the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE).
