I am reeling with shock at the conduct of Bruce Hyman who has been sent to prison for twelve months for planting a fake judgment on his opponent father in a contact case. A vox pop of my colleagues suggests that he got off quite likely as most of us would have given him two years. All of us are capable of making mistakes (yes even me) but what he did goes so far against the ethical requirements of a barrister and involved a calculation and stealth which it is impossible to attribute to a moment of madness or forgiveable misjudgement as a couple of quotes from the case of Rondel v Worsley in 1964 illustrates. Lord Reid said:
“Every counsel has a duty to his client fearlessly to raise every issue, advance every argument and ask every question, however distasteful, which he thinks will help his client’s case. But, as an officer of the Court concerned in the administration of justice, he has an overriding duty to the Court, to the standards of his profession and to the public, which may and often does lead to a conflict with his client’s wishes or with what the client thinks are his personal interests.”
And from Lord Denning:
“Counsel must accept the brief and do all he honourably can on behalf of his client. I say ‘all he honourably can’ because his duty is not only to his client. He has a duty to the Court which is paramount. It is a mistake to suppose that he is the mouthpiece of his client to say what he wants or his tool to do what he directs. He is none of these things. He owes allegiance to a higher cause. It is the cause of truth and justice. He must not consciously mis-state the facts. He must not knowingly conceal the truth. He must not unjustly make a charge of fraud, htat is, without evidence to support it. He must produce all relevant authorities, even those that are against him. He must see that his client discloses, if ordered, the relevant documents, even those that are fatal to his case. He must disregard the most specific instructions of his client, if they conflict with his duty to the court. The code which requires a barrister to do all this is not a code of law. It is a code of honour. If he breaks it, he is offending against the rules of the profession and is subject to its discipline. But he cannot be sued in a Court of law. Such being his duty to the Court, the barrister must be able to do it fearlessly. He has time and time again to choose between his duty to his client and his duty to the court.”
