Vademecum «Professional secrecy in the Swiss legal system»
The professional secrecy of attorneys-client privilege periodically comes under pressure. Events and processes under the keywords "Panama Papers", "Pandora Papers", money laundering, tax havens or Ukraine sanctions, which stick in the memory of a broad public, also affect lawyers. They advise or represent clients and thus obtain knowledge in which states, prosecution authorities, regulators and last but not least the media are interested.
Demands ranging from a general suppression of the professional secrecy to the separation of legal representation from advice or the request to apply the professional secrecy only to legal representation misjudge the importance of the professional secrecy for our state under the rule of law. They are dangerous because they fundamentally call into question a well-worn system of enforcing law and legal peace. They are also unnecessary because abusive invocation of the professional secrecyis effectively barred anyway, and because lawyers must act within the bounds of the law in their work for their clientele and are themselves severely sanctioned if they fail to do so.
With the Vademecum «Professional secrecy in the Swiss legal system» the Swiss Bar Association (SAV) wants to inform and show how important it is to understand the professional secrecy attorney-client privilege as an instrument of our value system and not to repress or dilute it out of individual case-driven hecticness.
Vademecum
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