Who should prioritize cases for an advocate?

«The defense counsel shall give priority to criminal proceedings in which he/she defends minors on behalf of the center, in particular, by taking appropriate actions to transfer participation in other criminal proceedings».

Among other novelties, the Ministry of Justice proposes to enshrine this provision in the Quality Standards for the provision of free legal aid in criminal proceedings and in the Quality Standards for the provision of free legal aid in civil and administrative proceedings and representation in criminal proceedings. The developer sent the draft orders to the Ukrainian National Bar Association for comments and suggestions.

The UNBA Committee on Legal Aid noted that such a wording of the provision cannot be accepted, as it interferes with the sphere of independent determination of the position by the defense counsel, which, among other things, concerns the temporal regime of the case.

On the one hand, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Law on the Bar and Practice of Law, which are the main regulations in this area, do not contain similar or analogous provisions. On the other hand, the obligation to prioritize certain proceedings encroaches on the guarantees of the practice of law. After all, Article 23 of the Law «On the Bar and Practice of Law» prohibits any interference and obstruction of the practice of law and interference with the legal position of a lawyer.

Also, the standard directly contradicts the decision of the Bar Council of Ukraine dated 13.12.2019 No. 169 «On Providing Clarification on the Priority of the Principles of the Advocate's Activity in the Provision of Professional Legal (Legal) Assistance», which emphasizes that the exclusive right of the advocate to determine the priority of various procedures scheduled for the same time at his or her own discretion, based on factors that may be important or decisive in each particular situation, is decisive.

The proposed rule does not take into account all the possible variety of life situations, in particular, cases where there is competition between different interests: court hearings or investigative actions, the time of which was agreed in advance with the lawyer; court hearings or investigative actions in relation to a person in custody; court hearings or investigative actions involving a significant number of people, etc. We should not forget about the potential for abuse by judges, who in this case will schedule court hearings in cases involving minors without coordinating the time of their holding with the defense counsel and demand the postponement of other criminal cases based on the proposed standard.

The peculiarities of criminal proceedings against minors are exhaustively regulated by the criminal procedural legislation. In particular, Article 28 of the CPC stipulates that such proceedings are considered in the first place. In addition, the failure of an advocate to appear in court without good reason or unreasonable postponement of a court hearing is a ground for bringing the advocate to disciplinary responsibility in any case.

The UNBA Committee draws attention to the fact that the standard is not aimed at establishing additional guarantees for minors (especially since a quick trial is not always in the interests of a minor defendant), but at creating additional responsibilities for the advocate to the detriment of other cases. Such unreasonable interference with the system of criminal procedural relations is unacceptable, as it threatens to create conflicts between lawyers, judges, clients, etc.

Therefore, the UNBA believes that the relevant provisions of the standards should be set forth in the following wording: «A defense counsel shall facilitate the observance of reasonable time limits for consideration of criminal proceedings in which he/she defends minors on behalf of the center».

All comments and suggestions to the draft amendments can be found at the link.