MORICE v. FRANCE JUDGMENT
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regard for the fair conduct of the proceedings. A lawyer shall, while maintaining due
respect and courtesy towards the court, defend the interests of the client honourably
and fearlessly without regard to the lawyer’s own interests or to any consequences to
him- or herself or to any other person. A lawyer shall never knowingly give false or
misleading information to the court.
21. The CCJE considers that the relations between judges and lawyers should be
based on the mutual understanding of each other’s role, on mutual respect and on
independence vis-à-vis each other.
The CCJE accordingly considers it necessary to develop dialogues and exchanges
between judges and lawyers at a national and European institutional level on the issue
of their mutual relations. The ethical principles of both judges and lawyers should be
taken into account. In this regard, the CCJE encourages the identification of common
ethical principles, such as the duty of independence, the duty to sustain the rule of law
at all times, co-operation to ensure a fair and swift conduct of the proceedings and
permanent professional training. Professional associations and independent governing
bodies of both judges and lawyers should be responsible for this process.
...
24. Relations between judges and lawyers should always preserve the court’s
impartiality and image of impartiality. Judges and lawyers should be fully conscious
of this, and adequate procedural and ethical rules should safeguard this impartiality.
25. Both judges and lawyers enjoy freedom of expression under Article 10 of the
Convention.
Judges are, however, required to preserve the confidentiality of the court’s
deliberations and their impartiality, which implies, inter alia, that they must refrain
from commenting on proceedings and on the work of lawyers.
The freedom of expression of lawyers also has its limits, in order to maintain, as is
provided for in Article 10, paragraph 2 of the Convention, the authority and
impartiality of the judiciary. Respect towards professional colleagues, respect for the
rule of law and the fair administration of justice – the principles (h) and (i) of the
Charter of Core Principles of the European Legal Profession of the CCBE – require
abstention from abusive criticism of colleagues, of individual judges and of court
procedures and decisions.”
E. The decriminalisation of defamation
61. Recommendation 1814 (2007) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe, “Towards decriminalisation of defamation”, states, inter
alia, as follows.
“1. The Parliamentary Assembly, referring to its Resolution 1577 (2007) entitled
‘Towards decriminalisation of defamation’, calls on the Committee of Ministers to
urge all member states to review their defamation laws and, where necessary, make
amendments in order to bring them into line with the case law of the European Court
of Human Rights, with a view to removing any risk of abuse or unjustified
prosecutions;
2. The Assembly urges the Committee of Ministers to instruct the competent
intergovernmental committee, the Steering Committee on the Media and New
Communication Services (CDMC) to prepare, following its considerable amount of