Independence of the Judiciary Coalition Statement on the Repression of Lawyers’ Freedoms #2: Bar Association Council Doubles Down on Authoritarianism

Independence of the Judiciary Coalition Statement on the Repression of Lawyers’ Freedoms #2: Bar Association Council Doubles Down on Authoritarianism

Facing the widespread objection to the decision on 3 March 2023 to gag lawyers, the council of the Beirut Bar Association doubled down by rushing last week to publish a booklet containing the revamped ethics code, apparently seeking to establish a fait accompli or outrace the judiciary after it took on the issue. Unfortunately, both the decision and the booklet contained no clear rationale, implying that the council can restrict freedoms as it pleases without being obliged to provide any justification. As for the justifications that the Bar Association president and council members expressed to some media outlets, they were conflicting or irrelevant (e.g. the justification of restricting media appearances on the basis that lawyers participated in the storming of a governmental department during a protest and the justification that prior censorship is the ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure). Some of the justifications even reflected a clear abuse of power, such as the president’s suggestion that lawyers’ freedom must be subjected to prior censorship because “a handful of them countable on the fingers of one hand” criticize him and council members, especially in the association’s elections. Apparently, restricting lawyers’ freedom not only impoverishes public debate, weakens rights-based protest discourse, and deprives people of legal knowledge but also fortifies these figures against any accountability through the media so that they can hold blind elections decided by networks of politics and interests irrespective of the candidate lawyers’ track records.

 

The abuse of power peaked with the summoning of lawyer Nizar Saghieh, a member of the Independence of the Judiciary Coalition (IJC), to be interviewed by the entire Bar Association council days after we published our previous statement. The council issued this summons without any power to do so and without explaining the reasons. This is a procedure the council has innovated to strengthen its influence over lawyers and intimidate them with the possibility of disbarment without a trial.

 

Hence, the IJC would like to state the following:

 

  • The Bar Association’s council is completely unable to provide any serious justification for the restrictions imposed on freedom, which violate the principles of necessity and proportionality and, in particular, Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Besides being unable to achieve the stated goal (ending the transgressions of a “handful of lawyers”), this new prior censorship mechanism also constitutes collective punishment and does grave harm to freedom and legal debates that far outweighs any benefit it could bring. Moreover, the Bar Association has far less costly means of intervening to address the transgressions it alleges, so the measure totally fails the proportionality requirement. Transgressions should be addressed with accountability effected through a fair trial, not by stripping generations of lawyers of freedom.

 

  • The council is obstinately and determinedly pushing forward with abusing and exploiting authority instead of setting things right and retracting the decisions. It took no measure against the recent flagrant transgressions in the form of vile insults directed at former Bar Association president Melhem Khalaf, yet it is summoning lawyers who dare criticize its decision for conflicting with international covenants and treaties. This disproves the council’s justification for restricting freedoms, namely its desire to combat transgressions. Hence, the only result of the restriction of lawyers’ freedoms is that they can now easily be prevented from playing their roles in correcting the authorities’ conduct and ensuring accountability under circumstances wherein all Lebanese people have become victims of an unpunishable regime. The summoning of Nizar Saghieh, who personally and as the director of the Legal Agenda has advocated causes before and beyond the courts and played a pivotal role in putting judicial independence on the reform agenda, is proof of that. Lawyers either submit to the law of silence and live with the prevailing regime or become renegades clamped down on by the association and driven out of the profession.

 

  • We are concerned that the council’s discourse about supposedly fighting “anarchy” is perfectly aligned with the anarchy discourse used by the caretaker prime minister and the Association of Banks in Lebanon against any action to effect judicial accountability. Adding to this concern is the fact that the summoning of Saghieh coincides with the summoning of journalists Jean Kassir (Megaphone) and Lara Bitar (The Public Source) for investigations that all revolved around society’s right to justice and the grip that people who evade justice have on the reins of government and power. These summonses target the directors of three institutions that constitute a key buttress in the process of liberating ourselves from the prevailing regime.

 

  • We support the challenges that lawyers have filed against the aforementioned decisions and call upon lawyers to show the broadest possible solidarity with them by writing and becoming involved in them. Hopefully, the Beirut Court of Appeal will perform its expected role in the protection of rights and freedoms.

 

  • We are very concerned about the Bar Association’s continued use of a warped disciplinary mechanism against the law regulating the legal profession, namely the summoning of lawyers for interview and investigation by its combined council and the insistence that the council has the right to disbar lawyers without trial. These stances display surreal authoritarianism absolutely unbefitting the association’s history of struggles for freedoms since the 1950s. Hence, we warn against any steps to discipline or intimidate any lawyer for exercising freedom of expression and criticism or for breaching any of the ethics code provisions that violate the Constitution and international covenants.

 

  • Finally, the IJC considers itself a party directly concerned by the summoning of Lara Bitar, Jean Kassir, and Nizar Saghieh and will wage the battle for freedom and justice alongside them as their partner.
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