The first, which took place in the UK, concerned Dinah Rose QC, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, who agreed to act for the Cayman Islands in an appeal to the Privy Council, in which the government of the Cayman Islands is set to argue that same-sex marriage should remain illegal. Two recent incidents have brought the identification rule to the public’s attention. For instance, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights does grant such a right to representation in criminal cases: ‘Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights: … (c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing.’ But there is no similar and absolute right in civil cases under the convention – the European Court of Human Rights has judged the right in civil cases to be dependent on circumstances. But that is a different rule, and differently based. It is often cited in conjunction with the rule that everyone is entitled to legal representation – which is why lawyers need to take on unpopular causes. And it also appears in the International Bar Association’s Standards for the Independence of the Legal Profession (paragraph 7): ‘The lawyer is not to be identified by the authorities or the public with the client or the client’s cause, however popular or unpopular it may be.’
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