The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), the AIRE Centre (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe), the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), the Dutch Council for Refugees (DCR) and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) submitted a joint third party intervention before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the case of Regvar v. Slovenia. The case addresses the confidentiality of legal advice, assistance, and representation in asylum proceedings.
Since 2021, Slovenian law requires State appointed refugee counsellors to disclose to the asylum authority, the Ministry of Interior, specific information about asylum seekers, such as their identity, age, or facts that may exclude them from international protection; failing to do so, they may be dismissed from their function. The interveners submit that such measures interfere with the confidentiality protected under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects lawyer-client communication as part of private life.
The intervention presents an analysis of international and EU law and standards on the protection of the right to legal advice, assistance, and representation in the context of asylum. All legal professionals providing legal services to asylum applicants and refugees are entitled to claim legal professional privilege, whether they operate as practising lawyers or in other roles fulfilling the same duties. The interveners submit that:
- The suspension of legal professional privilege cannot be justified under Article 8 in the absence of serious and specific considerations. None of the cumulative structural features identified in Michaud v France is present where a reporting obligation: (i) extends to the lawyer’s defence function in judicial proceedings, (ii) is imposed without any independent professional filter between the lawyer and the executive authority, and (iii) is justified by administrative convenience or purported efficiency rather than the prevention of serious crime.
- Any assessment of measures interfering with legal professional privilege must account for the nature of the legal services concerned and the role of legal professionals within the relevant framework, particularly in the context of asylum cases where the process is complex and information that is insufficient in one case may be decisive in another, requiring nuanced, and contextual evaluation.
- Confidential legal advice and assistance are essential to ensuring effective and equal access to ECHR rights for appellants in asylum cases and refugees given the importance of the rights at stake, the complexity of the legal framework, and the role of trauma in such cases.
Download
Read the full intervention text here.
Contact
For more information, please contact Karolína Babická, Senior Legal Adviser, karolina.babicka@icj.org
