Should Lawyers Work Hard to Defend a Client They Think Is Guilty?
“The law cannot make all men equal, but they are all equal before the law,” said Frederick Pollock(n.d.). In the course of social development, people have become more and more conscious of justice and human rights. Nowadays, judicial independence and impartiality can be marked as significant symbols of civilization. Among all the officers working in the judiciary, lawyers play an indispensable role in the judicial system. Without any judicial officer, we cannot ensure the enforcement of justice and human rights. What’s more, everyone in the world is entitled to judicial rights, even if lawyers assume their client is guilty. Lawyers should unquestionably work hard to defend a client for three reasons: lawyer ethics, judicial justice, and presumption of innocence.
Lawyers have an obligation to work hard based on lawyer ethics, and they should not choose their clients whether they are guilty or innocent. According to Kuo (2014), attorneys are ethically accountable for being an advocate to defend their clients including the criminal suspects, and they should spare no effort to present evidence about the real acts done by their clients based on the law and facts, even though they are guilty. So as to shield the litigation rights and other legal rights of the criminal suspects and the accused (p.67). Besides, the Ministry of Justice in Taiwan also formulated Attorney Regulation Act to clarify lawyers’ duties including protecting human rights and promoting social justice (Attorney Regulation Act, Article 1). Therefore, according to lawyer ethics, attorneys should defend their clients without prejudice or preconception.
Additionally, lawyers should defend their client to avoid unfair and excessive punishment and to guard judicial justice, even though the client is guilty. In most cases, the criminal suspects or defendants are usually people who commit a crime; however, the attorneys still need to ensure their rights to counsel. As Liu (2017) explains, the lawyers not only have to protect their client’s rights but also need to undertake the responsibilities of maintaining and improving the sound operation of the judicial system (p.72). Because of the apparent unequal power distribution between the judiciary and ordinary people, if the less powerful party has no right to safeguard themselves, the possibility of being wronged or framed may increase dramatically. Regardless of imposing the penalties on innocent people or inflicting excessive punishments on the criminals, they are all regarded as the maltreatment and abuse of judicial justice.
According to the presumption of innocence principle, everyone is innocent before the judgment. While the judicial system provides rights for the criminal suspect to appoint a lawyer to vindicate themselves, some people may argue that these lawyers are holding a candle to the devil, and they are also the accomplices in helping offenders exonerate. However, if we do not convict a criminal through a rigorous statement, defense, and judgment, how can a judge render a judgment to decide whether the criminal suspect is guilty or not? Whose instinct and subjective evaluation can be the principle to judge a criminal? In fact, these thoughts can be originated from “the presumption of guilt”, in other words, some people believe that lawyers should not defend these criminal suspects as they are already blameworthy, said Lee (2015). It is the judge that determines whether the client is guilty or not, but not the lawyer’s duty. Thus, nowadays our judiciary has established “the presumption of innocence principle” to guarantee the innocent people.
Without these momentous reasons: lawyer ethics, judicial justice, and presumption of innocence, people cannot obtain the justice they deserved and be protected from abusive punishment. If every attorney refuses to defend their clients merely because they believe the criminal suspects are guilty, these people may be unable to find other lawyers to defend themselves. More importantly, without the defense of lawyers, how can we keep the penalties from the risk of unfair treatment, and how can we fortify the right to counsel entitled by judicial justice and human right? Therefore, in order to implement these valuable rights, that’s why lawyers should work hard to defend their clients despite the fact that they might be guilty.
References
Kuo, Y.-L. (2014) A Study on the Effectiveness of Legal Ethical Norms
Retrieved from: http://ir.lib.pccu.edu.tw/bitstream/987654321/28026/2/fb140905132727.pdf
劉棕欣 （2017）。從憲法上權利保障之觀點論偵查中犯罪嫌疑人之辯護權。國立中正大學法律學系碩士在職專班碩士論文，嘉義縣。
取自：https://hdl.handle.net/11296/p388vn
李念祖（2015/02/13）。李念祖專欄：獲得律師辯護是基本正義—無罪推定原則系列之十三。出處：https://www.storm.mg/article/41865
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