# 6841 f11a Week 4

## Case Study

Is it right that barristers should always keep client secrets secret?
Or could some secrets be revealed for overriding reasons even when you are not supposed to tell them?

Each speaker has 2 minutes. Judge to provide 30 second warning

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### Group 1
Judge in favour for:
- Dimitri

Judge against:
- Also Mitchell I guess

In favour:
- Michael
- Leighton

Against:
- Mitchell
-

Points in favour:
- Secrets most of the time are revealed, so not keeping a clients secret and informing the police can put the lawyer in danger
- b
- c

Points against:
- Secrets in relation to future crimes should be relayed to prevent further crime.
- If it comes down to the lawyer being threatened, they should be able to seek help
-

---

### Group 2
Judge:
- William (for)
- George (against)

In favour (keep clients secret):
- Matt
- Haoming

Against (not keep clients secret):
- Steph
- Victor

Points in favour:
- Any organization should respect secrecy and follow the open justice principle
- Lawyers may not reveal oral or written communications with clients that clients reasonably expect to remain private
- Exposing secrect may led to violation of human rights in terms of Witness J
- "Australian Federal Police raid of his jail cell seeking a memoir that he had previously received official permission to write about his experiences"
- Clients have rights to remain their secrecy, eg have rights to not plead to guilty
- We can't predict the consequences of revealing a secret nor retract a secret once it's revealed, and therefore disclosing one is to fully committing to engage with unnecessary risk
- Some secrets are maintained for safety.
- E.g. Gobba was kept secret so that she could continue to inform for the police without her criminal associates discovering her role. A situation like that would definitely compromise her safety (whistleblower retribution).

Points against:
- In terms of the case study: Lawyer X (Nicola Gobbo)--> Insider threat?
- Nicola Gobbo alleged that she was being pressured by her powerful clients to break the law on their behalf in order to have them acquitted
- Nicola frequently feared for her life and so felt her only option was to inform the police of her clients actions
- The threat is coming from the client
- open justice principle underpinning Australia's legal system --> type I error
- "I understand the security thinking, but it was weaponised against me. I am still being denied and delayed access to representation and justice now"
- "I do believe an injustice has been served upon me, not just that I was remanded, but also the oppression, the arrogant over-classification of my situation"
- e.g. Witness J case, incorrect conviction because of a secret case
- quicker and more accurate convictions, so that dangerous cases are settled faster to avoid fighting and death --> type I error
- for example the settlement of the gangland wars in Lawyer X case
- Removal of bias of the legal system as a whole --> when we have secret cases (Witness J case), the government is bias to protect their own, when they should be relying more so on the "unbiased" opinion of a jury

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### Group 3
Judge:
- Hao Cheong
- You could almost say any circumstance is a unique scenario
- She was receiveing death threats from the police as well
-

In favour:
- Andrew Han
- Thomas Sinn

Against:
- Matthew Su
- Hayley Gayfer

Points in favour (Keeping Secret):
- There is a legal obligation and **trust** to keep their secrets. Breaking that trust might compromise the integrity of the lawyers and how one works with them.
- Regardless of their circumstance, they have a legal **right to a fair trial**. A good defence lawyer has the responsibility to give a chance to all criminals.
- Leaking secrets creates **an incentive to lie to your lawyers**. If a criminal knows that the lawyer can potentially leak secrets, they can mix truth with the lies. It messes up the whole trial as a criminal's testimony can conflict with the evidence.
- The point of extrenuous circumstance could be made for any case since there are no such thing as standard case.
- It could be a abuse of power for the police
- The truth can be twisted by the lawyers report as it is secondhand - it could be biased to give good evidence to the police
- Nicola Gobbo:
- Can bring legitimate cases under scrutiny and end in criminals being released
- Can also result in false convictions
- Already, one former client of Ms Gobbo's has been released from prison because a judge ruled her informing constituted a miscarriage of justice. Eight more former clients have appeals pending.
- - The royal commission heard that more than 1,000 people could be affected by her informing. It heard 124 cases may have been unfairly affected.

Points against (Against keeping secret):
- In terms of the case study: Lawyer X (Nicola Gobbo)--> Insider threat?
- Nicola Gobbo alleged that she was being pressured by her powerful clients to break the law on their behalf in order to have them acquitted
- Nicola frequently feared for her life and so felt her only option was to inform the police of her clients actions
- The threat is coming from the client
- Does the end justifies means? Yes. Nicola was dealing with Drug Lords who could do more harm to other people so if being an informant reduces this, this is worth breaking the integrity of the law.
- Where is the line on secrecy?
- Type I error: Client informs lawyer they are going to commit a heinous crime (murder), lawyer informs police although the client was actually lying
- Type II error: Client is not lying, lawyer does not tell police and then this crime is committed, resulting in loss of life
- If you tell someone a secret, then you can't tell if they tell anyone else that secret

Current law
- Have to keep secrets unless revealing it will pregvent serious physical harm to the client or another person (Queensland Law Society)

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### Group 4
Judge:
- student name

In favour:
- student name
- student name

Against:
- student name
- student name

Points in favour:
- a
- b
- c

Points against:
- f
- g
- h
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### Group 5
Judge:
- student name

In favour:
- student name
- student name

Against:
- student name
- student name

Points in favour:
- a
- b
- c

Points against:
- f
- g
- h
---