The Professional Secret, Confidentiality and Legal Profession ...

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countries are primarily related to
their activity as court lawyers. This
explains many of the differences in the
professional rules governing the conduct
of lawyers in these five states as well
as barristers and advocates in the UK
and Ireland, on the one hand, and those
which govern the conduct of German and
Danish lawyers and of solicitors in the UK
and Ireland, on the otherhand.
(v) What is protected by the professional secret?
22. It is necessary to distinguish between the rules of law and
the rules of professional conduct. It is a general rule
of professional conduct in all the states of the Six that
a lawyer should not reveal anything which has come to his
knowledge in his professional capacity.
be stated so generally or so simply.
But the law cannot
23. In FRANCE, BELGIUM AND LUXEMBOURG, the terms of the Penal Code
are such that any "secret" communicated in confidence to a
lawyer in his professional capacity by any person is covered
by the obligation of professional secrecy. The obligation
(and the corresponding rights) therefore extend, not only to
information communicated to a lawyer by his client, but also
to information communicated by the opposing party, by his
lawyer or by a third party, provided that the information
constitutes a "secret" and has been communicated in confidence.
And, since correspondence between lawyers is in principle
confidential, the obligation covers information contained
in such correspondence. It follows also that a lawyer is
not completely free to disclose information derived from others
to his own client. A "secret" has been defined as "tout ce
qui a un caractere intime que le client a un interet moral
et materiel a ne pas reveler", but the question of whether an
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