The State ought to ensure a fair trial, by primarily ensuring legal privilege, Justice Minister, Marios Hartsiotis said on Tuesday, in his address, in Nicosia, at the Cyprus Bar Association’s conference on legal privilege under EU law, noting that any limitation or exception should be examined in the light of the right to a fair trial as well as the Principle of Proportionality.

Hartsiotis noted that the protection of legal privilege was vital for the effective exercise of the right to a fair trial and is considered a fundamental right in the EU legal framework.

In recent years, the EU has intensified its efforts to ensure the integrity of legal contacts between lawyers and clients, he noted, and referred to the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU and to “numerous decisions” of the European Court of Human Rights that defended the protection of the legal professional privilege.

For this purpose, he said it was necessary to closely monitor developments in the European legal and case law framework regarding this issue. In Cyprus, he said, the corresponding protection is provided by the Constitution, in Articles 15 and 17, but also by the Lawyers' Code of Conduct Regulations.

The Minister stated that lawyers were the custodians of the information entrusted to them by their clients and the statutory legal representatives who have the obligation to represent and defend them in the context of a fair trial, “which the state must ensure by primarily ensuring the legal privilege”.

He noted that legal privilege may in exceptional circumstances be subject to limitations or exceptions but that every limitation or exception should be examined in the light of the right to a fair trial and the Principle of Proportionality. Any regulation that attempts to abrogate or limit legal privilege jeopardises the right to a fair trial, challenges effective litigation and therefore undermines the way the justice delivery system functions, he said.

In his own greeting, the Attorney General noted that this was a particularly sensitive and interesting issue, both for the lawyers themselves and for the justice system in general.

Referring to relevant case law, he pointed out that case law still clarifies that the rights enshrined in Article 7 of the EU Charter, which protects the confidentiality of any correspondence between private individuals and provides increased protection for communication between lawyers and their clients, “are not absolute privileges, but must be considered in relation to their function within society”. In this regard, he noted, it is possible to set restrictions on the exercise of said rights provided that these restrictions are provided for by law, that they are consistent with the basic content of said rights and that, respecting the principle of proportionality, they are necessary and truly respond to general interest purposes recognised by the EU or in the need to protect the rights and freedoms of third parties.

President of the Cyprus Bar Association, Michalis Vorkas, said that legal privilege was “of the utmost importance” to the justice delivery system, and was the cornerstone of ensuring trust in the lawyer-client relationship, providing the necessary guarantees of confidentiality, and should inexorably remain in force. This, he said, is the only way to effectively ensure the independence of lawyers as justice professionals and justice in general.

He noted that the Association has already submitted its positions on the issue to the President of the Republic and the House Committee on Legal Affairs, while the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, has also been informed.

Vorkas also pointed out that the CBA was the only body to which the State has entrusted the issuance of Regulations, the observance and supervision of legal privilege, in accordance with the 2022 Regulations on Lawyers’ Code of Conduct.