“All oral or written communications made by a client to his lawyer in the normal course of professional employment are privileged and confidential”: Rule 19 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners in Nigeria.
This is the general rule that any and every communication or discussion between a lawyer and a client at the cause of their professional relationship is confidential. Any secret, information, or detail divulged by the client to the lawyer is to be kept confidential and the lawyer is expected to keep it to himself and not to say a word of it to anybody, not even to his wife or his closest friend.
This is the general rule but as it is said in every general rule there are exceptions; this general rule of confidentiality is not left without exception. In this regard, there are some instances when a lawyer is expected to divulge any information or secret confided in him by his client.
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If a client confided in a lawyer about a crime the client has committed, the lawyer cannot do anything or report the client or leak that information but if a client confides in a lawyer about a crime he is about to commit or planning to commit, that lawyer is mandated to report that information to the authorities or do all he could to abort and thwart the commission of that crime or else the lawyer will be held to be an accessory to the crime.
This instance as an exception to the general rule of confidentiality purports that if a client confides in a lawyer about a crime he is about to commit, the lawyer is mandated to leak that information to anybody and every person who can ensure that the plan is aborted or the lawyer can keep the information to himself if he the lawyer can stop the commission of that crime.
Hence a lawyer is never bound to keep this a secret or privileged information when a crime is planned to be committed.
Lawyers are ministers in the temple of justice and lawyers owe it as a duty to the society to ensure that a planned crime which he have knowledge of is aborted and thwarted. So the lawyer’s patriotic duty and loyalty to the society in this instance come first before his loyalty to his client.
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