Disbarment for lawyer on trial

Lawyers will be able to have themselves dismissed from the Register even in the course of disciplinary proceedings. This is the consequence of sentence No. 70 of the Constitutional Court filed yesterday. The issue had been raised by the United Sections of the Supreme Court in the context of a judgement on the rejection of the request for cancellation made by alawyer due to serious pathologies that prevented him from practising his profession. For the local bar association the pendency of several disciplinary proceedings against him prevented cancellation.

The judgement noted that although the prohibition of cancellation aims to avert the risk that, by renouncing registration, the disciplinary initiative may be nullified, it has the consequence that, for the entire duration of the proceedings, the lawyer will not be able to exercise constitutionally recognised rights and freedoms, such as the freedom to revoke membership of the professional group, the right to benefit from certain social security or welfare benefits for which cancellation is required by law, and the freedom to take up a different employment activity.

The Court recognises that the judgment of illegitimacy causes a legal vacuum that the legislature may remedy by introducing a mechanism that is less restrictive of the lawyer's freedom but, in any event, capable of guaranteeing the preservation of the disciplinary action, at least in the event that the professional accused, after having obtained cancellation, asks to be re-registered. Pending legislative intervention, the ruling noted, dismissal of registration entails the extinction of the disciplinary proceedings initiated.