MANIFESTO OF LAWYERS ETICS *

 

_____“To live honorably, to harm no one, to give each his own”, are Ulpians law principles, dated from the early times, which, above all, lawyers must adopt.
_____Advocacy is one of the most human proffesions.
_____Advocacy is a constitution of deregulation and anomie in the administration of justice which natural state is fight for the right.
_____It preserves from arbitrary power and helps in protection and realization of human rights and freedom.
_____Advocacy is a guarantee of a fair trail and that’s  why the Constitution provides it to every citizen and legal entity.
_____Consequently, it is not a simple work,  but service which in accordance with law supervice the achievement of universal human and civil rights, right to legal aid, so from that point of view, advocacy, just like courts and trials, must become a separate constitutional category.
_____The aim of advocacy is  “to give anyone his right”. It means that advocacy is in the service of justice, so its representatives should call the righteous.
_____Lawyer is not the spokesmen of the accuesed, but professional helper, who’s aim provides application of laws in bringing a right and just decision.
_____The effectiveness of advocacy lies in independence, autonomy and professionalism.
_____It’s independent and autnomos only if it’s devoid from any state control and custody, which includes non-interference in professional work of lawyer.
_____Lawyers independence includes the economic independence. His freedom of choosing method of defence and representation which also includes his vehemence in the fight for the right, depends on his material secure.
_____“Easy money”  and quick profit must not be the credo nor motive in this service.
_____Advocacy is proffesion, if it’s representatives work on their improvement daily.
_____“Untaught man should learn, and educated man is pleased to repeat what he learned”.
_____Justice is a mother of law, and the essence of justice is in permanent struggle for herself. Advocacy is way of life.
_____Advocacy is synoyim of freedom and liberation, but not from the state and “emperors of time” instrumentalized work, or work of manipulated workers. It is highlighted and honoured profession, and as such, it’s exclusive.
_____Lawyers can call themselves by the name, only if they really serve under this values.
_____Authority and status in the public and in Bar Association,  lawyers should gain with knowledge, profesionalism and courage to resist any temptation and evil, and not by courtship to authorities, selfmarketing and creating a myth of themselves as a almighty lawyers.
_____In one definition for a contract by professor Mihajlo Konstantivović,  says: advocacy is in medias res of the whole justice (as institution) and the mostsupple of all legal professions. In that manner it is possible to perform various operations and most diverse effects in all areas of law.
_____Finnaly, this high quality of profession is the reason more, for the lawyers not to give up from the advocacy.
_____According to the famous professor Slobodan Perović, “…lawyers, by their vocation, must cherish the idea of right and justice, even when it find in the waves of social cataclysm. Lawyers can call themselves by that name, if and only if, the right in it’s material base is legitimate, and in it’s application legal. Beyond that reach is barren land, and there cannot be a lawyer as such.”

* Lawyer Dušan D. Bratić