More often than not, the profession of practicing law has been looked at with hate and dissatisfaction for the job can get downright messy and dirty. While we all know that it is impermissible and a federal crime to lie in the courtroom, lawyers-especially defendants- can get caught up in a web of lies trying to prove their client innocent.
Perjury is prevalent in law profession:
One has to understand an important term here which is; what’s ‘perjury’ and how is it any different from lying. Perjury is “the act of intentional act of swearing a false oath”. While the witnesses take oath before submitting their statements, a lawyer doesn’t swear an oath and only works on the arguments provided by the testimonies of the witnesses. The American Bar Association states that a lawyer shan’t make a false statement of material fact meaning that a lawyer cannot lie but if you look closely, the keyword is ‘knowingly’. This key word changes the entire game and makes the difference between a petty half-truth and a whole fabricated story that relies on a few ambiguous facts here and there.
Authenticity of the client’s claim:
Moreover, lawyers aren’t even liable to fact check their clients. Meaning if their clients do lie in court, there is nothing that the lawyer is liable to do to prevent it. In fact, some lawyers go as far as stating that it is their zealous advocacy that they believe their client’s version of the story.
Conclusively, we find that lawyers do lie in court and outside it claiming it to be ‘a part of their job’ but in reality the situation is much more rigged and far from the truth. The problems this yields is that they work in an industry or profession that aspires to find the truth in human conflict and intercourse. Such a lacking for this system can indeed prove fatal. They lawyers themselves have a responsibility to maintain the integrity of public justice system and the confidence that the wider society has in them but does that keep them from lying? No. Despite the moral and ethical code violations, it’s important to look at it from a much broader viewpoint as this isn’t an isolated industry that profits off careful white lies and blind eyes.
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