The legal system insists barristers have a primary duty to the court, contrary to how most people who employ barristers – and pay them – think of the relationship. In a new series, we explore how the law really works.
What is a barrister’s duty?
Chief Justice of Queensland, Paul de Jersey, welcoming newly-recognised barristers recently, had this to say about a barrister’s duty:
All lawyers should present as specialist professionals. Members of the bar protest a particular specialisation. It is one which allies them closely with the courts in the discharge of the charter of the delivery of justice according to the law.
The barrister’s speciality, in relation to the courts, is dual:
- first, expert advocacy, both oral, and increasingly these days, in writing; and•
- second, through informed advice to clients, effectively regulating the flow of work to the courts, and hopefully ensuring the courts are occupied only with cases which necessitate adjudication usefully informed by the adversarial process.
In that context, the barrister occupies a position especially close to this court, the court from which he or she derives professional lineage. As part of that, to meet the reasonable expectations of our constituency, we must all operate optimally, while independently.
The rank of barristers is burdened by substantial additional public significance, although it is a burden which is, one gauges, willingly and effectively borne. While barristers owe their professional lineage to the Supreme Court, and while the work accomplished by barristers is indispensable to the courts in the discharge of their mission, the bar is ultimately characterised by a steely independence. The courageous independence of the bar amounts to nothing less than one of the important safeguards of our democracy.
On behalf of all the judges, we … urge you to seek to discharge the high public duties of your role, as barristers, with fierce independence and high competence, while exhibiting undoubted integrity…
http://tiny.cc/u7nx1w – ceremony to acknowledge recently recognised barristers, Supreme Court of Queensland, 8 July 2013.
Well may Paul de Jersey promulgate that which he believes to be a barrister’s duty, but if justice is to prevail, then anyone at all, at any time whatsoever, should they feel forensically so inclined in but the slightest, can deem it their duty to do whatever it takes to ensure that our courts are prevented from achieving wrongful convictions, because our courts are not there to wrongfully convict and punish the innocent. It is ever just that a litany of lies and dutifully-deemed deceptions prevent wrongful convictions than that which is but-putatively ‘proven’ the truth to succeed in its punishing innocence. “It is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be found guilty” is an insult to investigative intelligence because “It is best that no innocent person be found guilty let alone punished.” Whoever is guilty of coining the former (Dippy Diplock?) was insidiously ignorant of the fact that gambling with guilt cometh at a parodying price.