Lawyers must not use media to win cases
- By Lin Wei
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E-mail China Daily, August 29, 2013
What is the role of a lawyer? The law says a lawyer shall "maintain the legal rights and interests of a client, help enforce the law, and maintain social fairness and justice". Therefore, a lawyer is obliged to analyze facts and interpret related legal matters to his/her client.
But in practice, a lawyer often takes measures -like interacting with the media to save a client from negative publicity - which are not part of his/her professional duties. For instance, in a high-profile gang rape case in Beijing, lawyers of the suspects as well as the victim have used new media to publish unconfirmed details of the case.
The gang rape case has drawn widespread attention because one of the five defendants, surnamed Li, is the son of famous singers. Li, 17, was detained in February on suspicion of raping a woman in a Beijing hotel room along with four accomplices, three of whom are also minors.
Many lawyers seek the moral high ground for their clients, for which they use the media. A lawyer cannot be prevented for publishing details of a case if he/she observes the law. Besides, debates among lawyers help us determine the truth. Everyone is entitled to have his/her own view of a case. But we should take all the evidence into consideration before determining the truth.
In Li's case, however, what his lawyer has done is debatable. Have his comments helped the cause of the defendant?
In some past cases, lawyers' comments have brought them momentary fame but hurt their clients' interests. In the gang rape case, the public debate seems to be on whether Li used coercion, or violence, to have sex with the victim. Other factors such as whether the victim was a sex worker, and whether the night club/hotel ran a prostitution racket could also influence the court's verdict in the case. However, even raping a sex worker is a crime in any country.
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