In Scotland, a Lawyer Was Fined. Complainant: He Was "More Concerned About the Damage to His Reputation Than the Harm He Caused"

Lawyer Lorenzo Alonzi

The aim of our project is to foster the development of a strong and independent legal profession. One of the aspects of this activity is to familiarize Belarusian attorneys with best practices from countries where the legal profession has reached a high level of development and autonomy. Issues of legal ethics, the relationship between the state and the legal profession, and the independence of the legal profession are universal and hardly depend on a specific country. The United Kingdom, with its institutions of barristers and solicitors, is a good example for analyzing emerging precedents and borrowing experience. In late May of this year, the English media reported that an English lawyer was fined over 'unacceptable' questioning of rape survivor. Let's examine the situation and see how rules of legal ethics work in countries where the legal profession is interested in protecting client rights, rather than deciding which monument to lay flowers at.

Context: During the period 2017-2018, Ellie Wilson was studying with her boyfriend Daniel McFarlane at the University of Glasgow. Ellie's boyfriend raped her, after which she managed to secretly record his confession. With this confession, the woman went to court to seek justice. During the trial in 2022, the defense asked inappropriate and dignity-degrading questions. Unwilling to tolerate the lawyer's behavior, Ellie Wilson filed a complaint, stating that the lawyer "traumatized" and "shamed" her in court. The lawyer was fined and is now required to pay Ellie compensation.

Ellie Wilson

According to Section 20 of the Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, they enjoy civil and criminal immunity for statements made in good faith in written or oral submissions or during their professional appearances before a court, tribunal, or other legal or administrative body. However, this freedom of good-faith expression has limits, as can be seen in Ellie Wilson's complaint against the actions of lawyer Lorenzo Alonzi.

Daniel McFarlane was found guilty of raping Ms. Wilson and sentenced to five years in prison. Lorenzo Alonzi defended Ellie's former boyfriend in court. According to Ellie, the lawyer "repeatedly crossed the line" during her examination at the rape trial.

At one point during the trial, Alonzi "abused his privileged position" by asking Ms. Wilson if she had a narcissistic personality disorder, despite there being no messages or diagnosis of this condition. Ms. Wilson replied that she did not.

After McFarlane was found guilty of rape, the lawyer told the court that his client "fell in love with the wrong person", that he did not belong in court, and that "it is hard not to see an injustice in all this".

Following the trial, Wilson complained about how Alonzi expressed his opinions and posed questions during the cross-examination, as well as his statements during the closing arguments and sentencing.

The Disciplinary Committee of the Scottish Bar Association, to which Alonzi belongs, determined that Lorenzo Alonzi's behavior could be equated to "unsatisfactory professional conduct" in 6 out of 11 complaints filed by Ellie Wilson, although it does not constitute professional misconduct.

The committee regretfully stated that Mr. Alonzi had not taken clear and unequivocal actions to prevent any breaches and had not offered unconditional apologies. However, he noted that he "regrets any distress caused to the complainant, as well as any discourtesy towards the court". The committee quoted Alonzi’s remarks about becoming a victim of significant negative publicity over the situation.

The committee noted that Ellie Wilson was deeply upset and distressed, and highlighted the time and effort she had spent filing the complaint. They awarded her compensation of 1,000 British pounds and issued a stern written reprimand to the lawyer.

Following the review of the complaint, the complainant stated, "Mr. Alonzi did not express remorse for his actions and seemed more concerned about the damage to his reputation than the harm he caused. It's hard to reach finality in this matter when there are no apologies".

Ms. Wilson expressed concern that the actions of defenders like Mr. Alonzi could deter others from standing up against injustice but believed his punishment would send a strong signal to other lawyers who breach ethical rules. "I hope this sets a precedent and shows lawyers and other legal professionals that their actions have consequences, and they cannot say or do whatever they please, irrespective of the law".

"This process took a year and a half and was far from easy," Ms. Wilson explained. "To file a complaint, I had to access the court transcript, which cost thousands of dollars at the time. I raised the funds for this, which in turn helped persuade the Scottish government to waive the fee for transcripts for victims! I had no lawyers to assist me. I am not a professional lawyer, so I had to start studying the relevant sections of the law and the code of conduct for lawyers. I spent hours working on this complaint and communicating with the relevant authorities.

Such complaints are extremely rare, and having gone through this process, I can understand why. It is a complex, lengthy, and expensive process. And that’s not even accounting for the trauma and emotional toll."

Ellie Wilson added, "This is precisely why so many lawyers operate with impunity. They believe they can say or do anything they want without any consequences. They rely on the opacity and secrecy of the judicial system, which conceals their behavior.

Such situations are practically inconceivable in the Belarusian paradigm. In a positivist legal attitude, a violation is likely not recognized as such without explicit codification in legal statutes — conversely, codified 'violations' are imputed regardless of an individual assessment of the situation."

Moreover, the history of independent Belarus includes instances where a rule intended for one-time retrospective application concerning a specific lawyer has been adopted: In 2021, the rules of legal ethics were supplemented with a prohibition concerning attorneys’ interactions with their colleagues, stipulating that an attorney cannot express an opinion on the guilt or innocence of the accused whom they do not represent. It's important to recall that it was indeed the fact that attorney D. Laevsky expressed that there was no evidence of guilt not only of his client V. Babariko but also of other figures in the "Belgazprombank case", which led to the Minsk City Bar Association disciplinary committee deciding to revoke Laevsky’s legal license. Thus, the new ethical guidelines technically "legalized" an already practiced basis for revoking a legal license.

However, it's important to remember that such behavior by the bar association does not conform to international legal standards. Therefore, it is valuable to pay attention to and analyze situations where the process and a motivated assessment of integrity are visible, discussions about the rights of the parties are conducted, and a balance of interests is evident. This is the essence of bona fide law enforcement.